


You Are Cordially Invited

by FlirtyFroggy



Series: The Magic Number [1]
Category: Football RPF
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, Other, Polyamory, That's a tag now, Threesome - M/M/M, boys being rubbish with feelings, it's practically a genre, stevie fails at communication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-14
Updated: 2016-10-14
Packaged: 2018-05-26 16:52:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 22,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6247957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlirtyFroggy/pseuds/FlirtyFroggy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Fernando was wasted, Stevie realised belatedly. Sober Fernando had inhibitions and boundaries and fucking manners. So did sober Xabi. They didn’t have sex on their captain’s bed and, if caught doing so, they certainly didn’t continue with him in the room, taunting and teasing him and implying that he should join them.</i>
</p><p> </p><p>Stevie's team-bonding party results in rather more bonding than he had anticipated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've been wanting to write this fic for ages but my brain kept saying you should really be working on other things and also you need to stop living in the past do you even realise how long ago 2008 was. As usual, I won and my brain lost.
> 
> I started thinking about this fic a long time before I saw [this](http://flirty-froggy.tumblr.com/post/134361323746) gifset, however it's so right for this fic it's uncanny.

“I will kill you, Reina, don’t think that I won’t,” Stevie yelled over his shoulder. Pepe’s laughter was loud enough to be heard even over the sound of Carra murdering Abba on the karaoke.

“I am sorry, Stevie, truly. It was an accident, I swear.” Pepe’s laughter-tinged voice followed him out into the hall.

“Yeah, right,” Stevie muttered, heading up the stairs. He was not nearly drunk enough for this shit. And in his own house, too. Some people had no respect. He plucked at the soaking wet cotton clinging to his chest and wrinkled his nose. Why did beer smell so gross the moment it got spilled?

He shouldered open his bedroom door and was three steps into the room when movement on the bed caught his attention. He looked up and promptly forgot all about beer, respect and everything else. A shirtless Fernando Torres was laid out on Stevie’s bed with his jeans unfastened, a hand working his cock. The image instantly seared itself indelibly into Stevie’s mind: the thrown-back head, the flushed cheeks, the lips parted as Fernando let out a moan, the heaving chest, the quivering stomach, the V of his hips disappearing under his waistband. It was all so very much for his mind to take in that he almost — almost — didn’t notice that the hand in Fernando’s jeans belonged to Xabi Alonso, who was propped on one elbow beside him, his own shirt hanging off his shoulders, his eyes fixed on Fernando’s face.

“Wha—” he managed, grabbing for something to support him, but his hand found only air and he ended up staggering sideways into a chest of drawers. Fernando’s eyes flew open and Xabi turned his head with a slow smile that said he knew Stevie had been standing there all along.

“You’re supposed to knock before you enter a room, Stevie,” Xabi chided.

It’s my bloody room, a distant part of Stevie’s brain shouted, but most of his brain was stuck on the fact that Xabi’s hand was still moving inside Fernando’s jeans. Fernando had propped himself up on his elbows and was watching Stevie with steady dark eyes, apparently completely unfazed by his captain watching him get jacked off by his teammate. “I, uh, need to change my shirt,” he said, indicating the mess down his front. Two sets of eyes fixed on where the transparent white material clung to his chest and stomach.

“I think it looks good,” Xabi said. “But I’m not going to argue with you taking your shirt off.” Fernando nodded beside him. Xabi did something new with his hand, twisting his wrist, and Fernando’s head fell back with a groan and a whispered curse. Xabi’s gaze moved away from Stevie and he turned to watch Fernando, a fond smile playing around his lips. Stevie felt something sting through him, sharp and painful, and he turned away and began unbuttoning his shirt with suddenly uncooperative fingers. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Fernando now rolling his hips up against Xabi’s hand, Xabi whispering things to him that Stevie couldn’t hear. Stevie kept his head down and focused on the buttons which just did not want to slide through their buttonholes. 

“You need some help with that?” Fernando’s breathless voice came from the bed. Stevie looked up to find both of them watching him again. “You seem to be struggling,” Fernando added, nodding at Stevie’s fumbling hands. Stevie’s eyes met Xabi’s and Xabi tilted his head in a clear invitation. Stevie shook his head and looked away, and found his gaze falling to where Xabi’s hand disappeared into Fernando’s underwear. He still couldn’t see anything other than movement but he had seen Fernando in the showers before, it wasn’t hard to fill in the details. In fact it was no effort at all to picture Xabi’s hand wrapped around Fernando’s cock. Stevie wrenched his eyes back to Fernando’s face, horrified with himself and his own inability to just fucking leave already. If anything, watching Fernando’s flushed cheeks and lust-blown eyes that seemed to see straight into every secret thought Stevie had ever had, was far worse than watching Xabi’s hand on his cock. 

Fernando was wasted, Stevie realised belatedly. Sober Fernando had inhibitions and boundaries and fucking manners. So did sober Xabi. They didn’t have sex on their captain’s bed and, if caught doing so, they certainly didn’t continue with him in the room, taunting and teasing him and implying that he should join them. He definitely preferred them sober, he decided. Sober Fernando and Xabi didn’t torment him with wicked grins and breathless moans and ambiguous but unmistakable hand movements. Sober Fernando and Xabi didn’t make him feel like his brain was going to fall out of his head.

Xabi was whispering in Fernando’s ear again and Fernando’s eyes kept falling shut no matter how he fought to hold Stevie’s gaze. His breath was coming in heavy pants and his hips were bucking up into Xabi’s hand and Stevie realised that if he stayed in this room much longer he was going to watch Fernando come. Fernando would be mortified. Not now, but in the morning, after he’d puked out all the alcohol, he was going to remember what he’d done and be mortified. It was this that made Stevie finally move his feet. He ran to the wardrobe, grabbed the first shirt he could find, and fled the room. His last glimpse of the couple on the bed was of Xabi leaning down and kissing Fernando as Fernando arched up into him.

He slumped against the wall for a second, pressing the heel of his hand against the erection straining inside his jeans, until the sound of laughter and something breaking downstairs reminded him that the house was full of people. He made his way to the bathroom down the hall, locked the door behind him with trembling fingers, and unzipped his jeans.

He came with a groan, leaning against the sink, knowing that two rooms away Xabi and Fernando were entwined on his bed, enjoying Fernando’s afterglow and possibly about to start work on Xabi’s. He wondered if they knew what he was doing.


	2. Chapter 2

Stevie had been right. Fernando was mortified. At least, Stevie assumed that was the reason he couldn’t look him in the eye during training. If Xabi was also embarrassed, he did a better job of hiding it. It was hard for Stevie to be sure because he himself was not exactly seeking out the other two. Best to leave it a few more days, he thought. With a bit more time and distance it would soon be forgotten and everything could go back to normal.

But it didn’t.

It was hard for things to go back to normal when Rafa pushed them so hard that Fernando ended up flat on his back with his eyes closed, his cheeks flushed with exertion and his chest heaving, and all Stevie could think about was him moaning on Stevie’s bed. It was hard for things to go back to normal when every time Xabi smiled Stevie saw him with his shirt hanging off, beckoning him to the bed. It was hard for things to go back to normal when Stevie couldn’t look at the two of them together without thinking, ‘I wanked off over you two’.

It was hard for things to go back to normal when Xabi, too quick for once, managed to collar him as a stretching partner after three days of awkwardness that the entire team had picked up on but nobody quite knew how to handle. Stevie added ‘being a good team captain’ to the list of things he’d fucked up this week. The awkwardness continued as they stretched. For all that he fancied himself the grown up in this situation, Xabi had apparently lost his bottle and didn’t know what to say either. The silence stretched as taut as Xabi’s aductors as Stevie pushed against his foot, and they each looked at the grass or sky or pretty much anywhere but at each other. “Were you really surprised?” Xabi blurted at last.

“To walk into my bedroom and find two of my teammates fucking in it? Pretty surprised, yeah.”

“We weren’t actually—”

“Oh, don’t start being pedantic now. You want to nit-pick about the technicalities?” Xabi shook his head. “You were indulging in, in sexual activity in my bedroom. You think I want to walk in and see that?”

“You weren’t exactly in a hurry to leave.”

There was a long, horrible silence. Stevie could feel his cheeks burning.

“Sorry. _Dios_. Really, I’m sorry. For everything. We both are. So sorry, Stevie. We were drunk.”

“You weren’t though. I mean, you were, obviously,” he added at Xabi’s surprised look. “But that wasn’t why.” He remembered the way they had looked at each other, the way Xabi had looked at Fernando. Whatever this was, it wasn’t some drunken fumble. That thing stabbed through him again, as it had when he had watched them on the bed. It hadn’t made any sense to him at the time — nothing had made sense to him at the time — but over the last few days he had come to recognise it for what it was: jealousy.

“No. It’s not always— it’s been a while since we’ve had chance to be alone.”

There was a question on Stevie’s tongue, begging to be asked. Stevie forced it down. Just when he thought he’d won, it spilled out anyway. “Did you want me to catch you?” Xabi’s eyes widened and they stared at each other for several long seconds. Stevie held his breath, not sure which answer he was most afraid of.

“Maybe?” Xabi said, and Stevie let his breath go in a whoosh. “It wasn’t a planned thing but there was something about, um, about the fact that it was you— your bed that appealed. To both of us.”

Stevie decided now would be a good time to sit down. He sprawled onto the grass, stretched his legs out in front of him, and put his head on his knees. “Fuck, Xabi.”

“If you like,” Xabi said quietly, sliding a tentative hand onto his shoulder. Stevie’s head shot up to find Xabi’s hopeful, nervous, face inches away from his own. His gaze fell to Xabi’s lips, then he pulled it away before he did something stupid. About ten yards away, Fernando was watching them as he stretched his hamstring. Stevie lowered his head back to his knees with a groan. 

“This is not the place for this conversation.” There is no place for this conversation, he thought, but neglected to say it out loud.

“You’re right. Sorry. Again. Later, after training?”

“Can’t. Busy. Alex,” he said, still talking to his knees. They were about the only thing he could handle a conversation with at the moment. 

“Okay. Whenever you’re ready. We do need to talk about it though, the three of us. Even if it’s just to, how do you say it, clean the air. We can’t carry on with this awkwardness. I don’t want to.”

“I don’t want to either.” Stevie raised his head. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. It’s a lot to expect you to deal with at once.”

“No, I mean, I’m sorry for the awkwardness. I’m sorry for— what you said earlier, about me not leaving. You’re right. I stayed and I shouldn’t, I should have just left.”

“Why didn’t you?” Xabi said. Stevie shook his head. He didn’t have an answer to that question. “Sorry.”

Stevie groaned and lowered his head again. He should have just stuck to talking to his knees.

The rest of training was fine if you ignored the fact that three of the teams key players were a disorganised, distracted mess. Rafa was not inclined to ignore it. “I don’t know what is the problem with you three and I do not care. Sort it out or I will send you all on loan to Tranmere Rovers. Then you will be their problem, not mine.”

They trudged off towards the locker room in silence. Out of the corner of his eye, Stevie saw Fernando brush the back of his knuckles against Xabi’s. He broke into a jog and by the time the other two had reached the locker room, Stevie was already out of his kit. As they came through the door he heard Fernando asking who Tranmere Rovers were. A laugh escaped him and Fernando looked over in surprise and met his eye for the first time in days. He flushed but didn’t look away this time and gave Stevie a hesitant smile. Stevie ducked his head and headed for the showers.

He was out of Melwood in record time, consolidating his shit captain performance by blowing off three separate people in his rush to get out of there. Then he sat in his car for a long time, not moving, just staring at the entrance. It wasn’t long before they emerged, their heads bowed together as they talked. Fernando had his arm slung around Xabi’s shoulder. A week ago Stevie would have thought nothing of it. Now he could see the way they leaned into each other, the way Fernando’s fingertips lingered on Xabi’s collarbone. The way they looked at each other. Hiding in plain sight.

Fernando glanced up and saw him watching them. He tapped Xabi’s shoulder and they both stopped. He should talk to them, he realised. Admit he lied about having plans with Alex and invite them round to his place and talk it all out. Whatever the outcome. Instead he gunned the engine and backed out of his parking space. He could see them in the rearview mirror as he drove away.

They did not look pleased.


	3. Chapter 3

Stevie stared at the ceiling. It yielded no more answers than it had the night before, or the night before that. He turned to look at the clock, heaved a sigh, and turned back to the ceiling.

“Stevie, you know how much I love you, but if you don’t stop squirming about and sighing I’m going to smother you with a pillow,” Alex’s muffled voice came from beside him. 

“Sorry, love.”

“What’s wrong with you anyway?”

The thing was, if he said ‘last week I walked in on Xabi and Fernando getting off with each other and it made me so hard I had to go have a wank in our bathroom and now I can’t stop thinking about them’, she’d probably just shrug and reply ‘that would probably make me hard too’, and then roll over and go back to sleep.

“Nothing,” he said instead. “Just thinking about the season. We could really do it this time, you know.”

“I know, love.” A hand slid across his chest and she kissed his shoulder. “But you won’t be winning anything if you don’t get some sleep. Or if I’ve killed you. So count sheep or something. Or trophies. Whatever.” And she snuggled up against him and was snoring quietly within minutes. He looked down at her and wondered how he could even be contemplating cheating on her. He didn’t understand how the other two could do it. He knew how much Xabi loved Nagore, and it was obvious to anyone with eyes that Fernando adored Olalla. It didn’t make any sense.

And what did they even want from him? Sex? His conversation with Xabi had certainly suggested it. Did they want a one-off thing, something to spice up their relationship like Stevie was some sort sex toy? Or were they thinking of something more permanent? Did they want the three of them to become — what? A couple? How did that even work? All he knew was that as horrifying as it had been to have them try to pull him into their little triste on the bed, it had been even worse during those moments when they only had eyes for each other, like he wasn’t even in the room. He thought about the way they talked together in the canteen or at the pub, voices pitched low and intimate; how they were constantly aware of each other’s presence; how every so often they would go off for international duty together, into this whole other team, a whole other world, that Stevie had no part in. He didn’t know how he would fit into that.

Or perhaps they didn’t want anything from him. Perhaps he had misunderstood everything and all they wanted was for him to stop being so fucking weird.

A voice in his head that sounded rather like Alex pointed out that he could get answers to a lot of his questions if he would just talk to them. He groaned and rolled over. It didn’t matter any way. He had no intention of cheating on his wife. Some time after the sky had started to lighten and the birds had started to chirp, he finally fell asleep.

~~

“You look like shit, _hombre_ ,” Pepe said, clapping him on the shoulder.

“Thanks. I can always count on you to make me feel better.”

“Any time. You okay?” He said, peering more closely at Stevie’s face. 

“Fine. Just not been getting much sleep lately.” Out of the corner of his eye he saw Fernando look up. Xabi paused in whatever he was saying, then resumed his conversation. Stevie kept his eyes firmly on Pepe.

“Don’t worry so much. It’s only Sunderland.” Unfortunately for Pepe, and everyone else, he said this within Rafa’s hearing and the entire team was subjected to ten minutes on why there is no such word as ‘only’ in football, and you shouldn’t underestimate any opponent.

“I was only trying to perk Stevie up,” Pepe protested to the others when the lecture was done. 

“Good job, mate,” Carra said, eyeing Stevie. “That really worked.”

The game wasn’t the disaster it should have been, thanks entirely to Fernando’s right foot. In the elation of the moment, Fernando launched himself into Stevie’s arms just as he always had, and there was no awkwardness and no tension, there was just them and their team. If Stevie was more aware than usual of Fernando’s weight, his heat, the way he wrapped himself around him, it was at the back of his mind and easily ignored.

It didn’t last. 

In fact, it took less than half an hour for Stevie to screw it up again. They were in the dressing room after the game when a fresh from the shower Fernando came up to him, all smiles, and put an arm around him. That simple, innocuous gesture was too much, he was too close, and before Stevie even knew what he was doing he was pushing Fernando’s arm off him and stepping away. 

Stevie froze. All the joy vanished from Fernando’s face. Pepe, Carra and Sami all stopped what they were doing. Fernando’s mouth flattened into a tight, thin line and he turned and walked away. Stevie couldn’t call out to him without drawing further attention to the incident, and he certainly couldn’t run after him. He would have to deal with it later. Avoiding the curious looks of the others he turned back to his bag only to find Xabi standing there, arms folded, looking about as pissed off as Stevie had ever seen him. “Sorry,” Stevie said, not knowing what else to say.

“What are you apologising to me for? We’re not a single entity,” Xabi said, and stalked past him. Steve sighed and resisted the urge to beat his head against the wall.

~~

It was getting late by the time their coach arrived back at Melwood, thanks to roadworks on the M62, and the lights were just starting to flicker on in the car park. Stevie had spent the entire journey, traffic jam and all, expecting his seat to burst into flames from the glare he was sure Fernando was giving him from three rows back. He said goodnight to everyone in a belated attempt to fulfill some of his captain’s duties, and made his way to his car. It was only then he realised Fernando’s car was parked right beside his, something he hadn’t noticed in his almost-late rush that morning. He supposed this was what he got for being ridiculous and leaving it this long to talk to him: he now had to have this conversation in the Melwood carpark. He couldn’t leave it any longer. Something told him that if he drove away now he would damage something that couldn’t be fixed.

A couple of minutes later Fernando appeared, and he didn’t look surprised to see Stevie waiting for him. Of course Fernando had known where his car was parked. “Nando, mate.” For a second Stevie thought Fernando might hit him. Then he stepped past him and unlocked his car. 

“I am not your mate,” he said, flinging his bag into the backseat and slamming the door. He turned back to Stevie and folded his arms. “Mates do not watch while…” Fernando bit his lip and Stevie tried to keep his mind free of any mental images which would not be useful right now. “Or maybe they do in England and I did not realise. That is it? I should have invited others to watch also? They enjoy themselves watching me and then tell about it after? Laugh?” The narrow space between their cars seemed to grow even tighter as Fernando’s anger filled it.

“Nando—”

“Xabi thinks,” Fernando began, taking a step closer to Stevie. Fernando was tall, and for all his shyness he wasn’t meek; he could hold his own on the pitch against anyone. But Stevie had never associated him with the word ‘intimidating’ before. “Xabi thinks that you like us, both of us, and that you do not know what to do about it. That you are confused.”

“What do you think?” Stevie said, because it seemed safer than saying, ‘yeah that sounds about right’. Fernando’s lip curled, and it was so alien to the way he normally looked at Stevie that Stevie recoiled, his back colliding with his car.

“I think that you like it when you are drunk. I think that in the morning you tell yourself it was the alcohol and it doesn’t mean anything and you go back to your wife and pretend you didn’t enjoy two men together. I think you tell yourself that you are okay with it because you are a good man and you do not judge others and you do not even admit to yourself how much we disgust you. That is what I think.”

“No! Fuck, Nando, no of course not. You don’t disgust me, are you mental?”

“I don’t disgust you. Okay. You just cannot stand to touch me any more.”

“What? No. I touched you today, didn’t I? When you scored.” He knew it was the wrong thing to say before he’d even finished speaking.

“Oh, _siento_. I meant you cannot stand to touch me when I am not winning games for you.”

Stevie closed his eyes and counted to ten. He was not going to let this devolve into an argument about the team and who was or wasn’t pulling their weight. When he opened his eyes Fernando was still watching him, his face set hard though Stevie could see through the anger how hurt he was. “Nando, please, please believe me. You do not disgust me. Neither of you disgust me. I swear. I just handled this really, really badly.” Fernando snorted. Stevie placed a hand on his arm and Fernando shook it off. He supposed he deserved that. Stevie took a deep breath. He had to be honest or Fernando was never going to trust him. “Xabi’s right, okay. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about the two of you since the party. And that’s been difficult for me. I didn’t know how I felt or what to do about it. I told myself it was all a moot point since I would never do anything about it because of Alex. But it didn’t change the fact that I now had these thoughts and feelings that I didn’t have before. Or that I didn’t know I had before, I suppose. I was just trying to figure it all out.” Fernando was studying him with a frown but he was no longer spitting venom. He wasn’t even glaring at him any more.

“I can ask you something?” Stevie wasn’t sure why he was asking permission now. He took it as a sign they were heading for more normal ground. He nodded. “Why did you push me away today?”

“I don’t know,” Stevie said. Fernando narrowed his eyes, and Stevie realised he was doing nothing to disprove Fernando’s ‘secretly disgusted and doesn’t even know it’ theory. He summoned all his courage, which was just enough to get the words out though not enough to actually look at Fernando while he said them. “I’ve been trying to convince myself that I don’t want you. It’s difficult at the best of times and pretty much impossible when you drape yourself across me.”

“ _Cabrón,_ Fernando muttered, but he said it fondly and was almost smiling. He leaned back against his own car and ran his hands over his face. He looked tired, and somehow too old and too young all at the same time. “There is something you want to ask me?”

Many, many things, Stevie thought. “What about — and I should emphasise that I am not judging you in anyway — but what about Nagore and Olalla? How can you— what about them?”

“They understand.”

“They do?”

Fernando nodded, a real smile creeping onto his face for the first time since that afternoon. “We are very lucky.”

“Can they explain it to me?” He had said it in an attempt to lighten the atmosphere, but Fernando seemed to be treating the question seriously.

“They probably would,” he said after a moment’s thought. 

Stevie thought about sitting down with Olalla, who he barely knew, and Nagore, who scared the crap out of him, and asking them why they were happy to let their husbands fuck each other. “Maybe not.”

“You wish to know anything else?”

“Did you really want me to join you?” 

Fernando’s smile faded. It was harder to read his expression now, the twilight casting strange shadows on his face. “Yes.”

Stevie’s breath caught and his heart sped up, just from that simple word. “Do you still?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Fernando straightened up and stepped forward. If Stevie leaned forward just a little they would kiss. “Because we would be good together, the three of us, no? Because I want to be with you and so does Xabi. Because, how we feel, oh—” he broke off into frustrated Spanish. “I need Xabi for this. My English…” he threw up his hands. “Too much, for this. Too little.” Stevie laughed and Fernando did too, and it brushed over Stevie’s cheek. 

“I want to,” Stevie admitted. “I want to. But I can’t.”

Fernando smiled. “This is all you need to say.” For a second Stevie thought he was going to kiss him anyway and he found himself leaning into it. But Fernando pulled back and stepped away. “We did not want to make you uncomfortable. We did not want any of this. I am sorry.”

“I’m sorry too. I took a difficult situation and made it a hundred times worse. Especially for you. It’s different for Xabi, I suppose, he wasn’t the one who— anyway, I’m sorry.”

“Perhaps we should stop being sorry and, how you say? Move away?”

“Move on. Sounds good to me, mate.”

“Okay, mate.”

Stevie laughed and pulled Fernando into a hug. He stiffened for a second then relaxed in Stevie’s hold. He smelled of shower gel and shampoo and Stevie didn’t want to let go. Fernando pulled away first, a hand on Stevie’s cheek.

“If you change your mind,” he said, skimming his fingers over Stevie’s jaw. “You can always change your mind.” He leaned in and pressed a gentle kiss to Stevie’s cheek. “ _Buenas noches_ , Stevie.”

“’Night,” Stevie said, watching him climb into his car. He thought about telling him to stay, but why? So they could stand here staring at each other in the Melwood car park all night? The engine roared in the quiet of dusk. Fernando quirked a rueful smile at him and drove away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Here](http://cache1.asset-cache.net/gc/82380584-fernando-torres-of-liverpool-celebrates-gettyimages.jpg?v=1&c=IWSAsset&k=2&d=GkZZ8bf5zL1ZiijUmxa7QV95jPU5U7IepD6%2FrSM26ryRr6cs5RqfsZ5sUECBabBEckcBA2vWlFDdXvgncQLfBQ%3D%3D) is their celebration of the Sunderland goal, just in case you needed that visual.


	4. Chapter 4

Things got better after that. They didn’t exactly go back to normal, but the three of them were able to actually function as teammates, much to the relief of the rest of the team. Rafa was a lot happier. Carra stopped looking at Stevie like he was about to call the Samaritans, or worse, actually attempt to speak to Stevie about feelings. Pepe continued to eye them speculatively, but Stevie could live with that.

He could even manage to hold a normal one-on-one conversation with Xabi and Fernando without running away, staring openly, or otherwise embarrassing himself. It was always one-on-one though. They were careful to only approach him singly, not as a pair. He got the impression they were trying not to spook him.

It was a delightful August day in Liverpool, which meant that it was pouring down. Stevie searched through his bag, getting wetter and wetter, before checking his pockets again and concluding that, no, he did not have his keys. He must have left them in the locker room. He jogged back inside, hunching his shoulders against the rain as though that would somehow protect him. The receptionist smiled sympathetically and threw a towel at him as he went past. 

The locker room should have been empty by now. It wasn’t. Stevie stopped dead, his towel hanging off his head, as he took in the sight in front of him.

“For fuck’s sake you two,” he said, causing Fernando to spring back from where he had been pressing Xabi against a locker. “Are you trying to get caught? What if it hadn’t been me?”

“But it was you,” Xabi said, without even the decency to stop lounging against the locker — Stevie’s locker, he now realised. If he looked closely, he could see the glistening trail that showed where Fernando’s mouth had been on his neck. He stopped looking. “You look ridiculous by the way.”

Stevie glared and snatched the towel off his head while Fernando snickered. “I need to get to my locker,” Stevie said, with what he thought was an infinite amount of patience. “If you don’t mind.” Xabi stepped obligingly out of the way and Stevie opened up his locker to look for his keys.

“Sorry, Stevie,” Fernando said from behind him. He sounded a little muffled and Stevie tried not to think about why that might be. “We thought everybody is gone.”

“Still kinda risky isn’t— where the fuck are my fucking keys?”

“They are not there?”

“No, they are not there.” He slammed his locker shut and told himself that his tetchy mood was due to being wet and cold and had nothing to do with anything he might have seen when he came in. 

They searched the locker room but there was no sign of Stevie’s keys. Some people were more helpful in the search than others; Xabi spent most of the time checking out Fernando when he bent down to look under benches. “You want a lift?” Xabi said when they finally gave up.

“Yeah. Thanks, mate.” 

Xabi and Fernando gathered up their belongings and Stevie cast a last glance around the room as though his keys would suddenly appear. Just as Xabi was about to swing open the locker room door, Fernando tugged at his sleeve and pulled him back. Xabi smiled as he wrapped his arms around Fernando and let himself be drawn into a kiss. Stevie swore he saw a glimpse of tongue before he reminded himself that he shouldn’t be looking and turned his attention to his own shoes.

“Sorry, Stevie,” Fernando said, and Stevie looked up to find them pulling away from each other. Fernando’s cheeks were pink and he looked a little sheepish, but happy. Stevie couldn’t begrudge him that. “We cannot say goodbye properly in the car park, so.”

“Is this what you do then?” Stevie said as they headed out to their cars. “Hang back after everyone else has gone so you can make out in the locker room and ‘say goodbye properly’?” He tried to remember if he had ever noticed them lingering in the locker room, but he couldn’t discern any pattern. There were definitely times he’d seen one or both of them leave before him.

“Sometimes,” Xabi said. “We can’t do it a lot, someone would notice.”

“Someone did notice,” Stevie muttered.

It was still throwing it down when they got outside. Fernando, not remotely dressed for the weather, waved them off with a quick ‘see you tonight’ to Xabi and ran to his car. He was soaked through within seconds, his t-shirt suddenly clingy and translucent. Stevie and Xabi followed suit, splashing through puddles as they ran. By the time Stevie collapsed into the passenger seat of Xabi’s car he was soggy and laughing. Xabi cranked the heat up and pulled out of the car park.

“So what’s tonight then?” Stevie said after about five minutes of not quite comfortable silence. Xabi shot him a look.

“Dinner.”

“Oh. Just the two of you?” Xabi nodded. “You do that sort of thing then?”

“What sort of thing? Eating?”

“You know what I mean.”

“You mean things other than sex,” Xabi said.

“You make it sound— I didn’t mean that.”

“Yes you did.”

“Well, maybe I did. It’s just— nevermind. It’s none of my business.”

“You can ask questions if you’re curious. I do not mind. It’s quite a relief to talk about it actually. At least with someone who isn’t my girlfriend.”

Stevie let his brain try to wrap itself around that one for a couple of minutes. His fingers drummed against his knee. “So, you’re serious then, you two. It’s not just sex, like.”

“It’s not just sex,” Xabi confirmed.

“Huh.” Stevie didn’t know why he was surprised. He already knew this. It was just a little strange having Xabi confirm it. He found himself watching Xabi’s profile; his cheekbones and his jaw and the way his eyes flickered from the road to the rearview mirror and back again, and, occasionally, to Stevie. His stubble looked rough and he wondered what it would feel like against his fingers, against his cheek, against his inner—

“Stevie?”

“Huh? Yeah?” Stevie said, shifting in his seat.

“You are staring.”

“Oh. Sorry.” Xabi just smiled. “So, uh, when did it start? You and Nando. How did it start?” 

Xabi shrugged. “We were drunk.”

“Oh.” 

“You are disappointed?” Xabi said, laughing. “You expected something else? Something more romantic?”

“No, I— yes, I suppose so. I dunno. It’s just not what I expected you to say.”

“Okay. Our eyes met across a crowded room. We had been friends for a long time, but it was only in that moment that we both realised we wanted something more. The rest of the world fell away as we looked into each other’s eyes. He held out a hand to me — Is this the sort of thing you were hoping for?”

“Very funny,” Stevie said. He tried to keep a straight face but it felt too good to laugh with Xabi again, to feel at ease, and he soon gave in. “By the way, your impression of a crappy romance novel is both worrying and impressive.”

“Thank you. I would ask how you know so much about crappy romance novels but I don’t think I want to know the answer.”

“Eh, I have to room with Carra a lot.” Stevie didn’t really know what that was supposed to mean, it was just a stupid joke. He didn’t even realise he’d implied that rooming with Carra made him sexually frustrated until Xabi started laughing. “Oh, shut up,” he said, laughing too.

“You really want to know how it started?”

“Wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t.”

Xabi opened his mouth then closed it again. “Actually, maybe I shouldn’t tell you.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t want— This has been nice, talking to you, being normal. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable again.”

“Why would it make me uncomfortable?”

“Because it involves you.”

“Oh. I— oh.”

“Anyway, it is a long story and we are here now,” Xabi said, and they were indeed turning onto Stevie’s street.

“Right. Okay then.” The car glided to a halt and Xabi patted him on the arm. Or perhaps it was more like a caress, with the way his hand lingered and his thumb brushed the inside of Stevie’s elbow as he drew away. “See you then, mate. Thanks for the lift.”

“Any time,” Xabi said. He watched him all the way up to the house.

It took about five hours for Stevie to crack. Then he was reaching for his phone and pulling up Xabi’s number.

“ _Hola_ , Stevie,” a voice answered.

“Nando?” Of course. Tonight was dinner. Just the two of them. Stevie hoped he wasn’t interrupting anything, though he supposed Fernando wouldn’t have answered the phone if that was the case. He pressed his lips together and tried to block out the mental image of the two of them on Xabi’s couch.

“ _Si_ , yes, Xabi is— wait. He is here.” There was some muffled rustling and something indecipherable from Fernando, and then Xabi’s voice came over the line.

“Stevie? Everything is okay?”

“Yeah, fine, sorry. I forgot Nando was going to be there tonight. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“Is fine, you are not interrupting. We just finished eating.” Stevie glanced at his watch and shook his head. Spaniards. “Did you want something?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“No, no. You must have called for something. We can talk if you want, Fer doesn’t mind.”

“I do not mind,” Fernando confirmed in the background.

“It’s silly. It doesn’t matter.”

“Stevie.”

“It’s just— what you said earlier. About you and Nando getting together and it involving me. How could it possibly involve me?”

“Ah. I’m sorry, I knew I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“No, it’s fine, I’m just curious.”

“Curiosity killed the dog, Stevie.”

“The cat, Xabi. Curiosity killed the cat. And I still want to know.”

“Hold on.” There was a brief, muffled conversation at the other end of the line. “Stevie? Okay, I will tell you but you should know that this will definitely make you uncomfortable and you have to promise not to act weird about it and ignore us this time.”

“I promise,” Stevie said, though he was starting to seriously doubt the wisdom of pursuing this.

And then Xabi told him a story. A story about wanting more from his captain than his captain was able to give. About the beautiful new teammate who joined them — Stevie could practically _hear_ Fernando blushing at that one — and how he also wanted more from their captain than the captain could give. About how they found solace in each other. About how they found something else in each other, too, something that had nothing to do with their captain; something that was just theirs.

Stevie was profoundly glad they had not had this conversation in the car.

“When you walked in on us, when you didn’t leave, we thought that maybe you would be willing to— but you are not. So no matter. We are happy together. We are happy for you to be our captain. Our friend. So.” Stevie didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing. “Stevie? You are still there?”

“I think so,” Stevie said, not entirely sure about this.

“You are freaking out, aren’t you?”

“No. No, I’m fine. This is fine.” He took a deep breath. “It’s a little unexpected.”

“You are a very unobservant person, if you do not mind me saying.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t go around assuming my teammates are— okay, so, what you said to me about, y’know, liking being on my bed, that wasn’t just a kinky thing. It wasn’t like ‘oh yeah, let’s do it on the captain’s bed’. It was because it was… me.”

“Yes.”

“Fuck.”

“Stevie?” Fernando was back on the line. “Stevie, you are okay, yes? This is not weird for you? That’s not right, I know it is weird for you. But I do not know how to say.”

“It’s alright, Nando, I know what you mean. It is weird for me but it’s not bad weird, just confusing weird. And disbelieving weird. I had no idea you felt like that. About me.”

“Did you not?”

He really didn’t. He had been aware of a certain amount of idolising, but that was part and parcel of being a captain, especially at somewhere like Liverpool. He knew, too, that sometimes that idolisation could involve something like a crush that maybe blurred the platonic boundaries of being a teammate. But he had had no idea about this.

“Look, Nando, you and Xabi. You’re happy, yeah?”

“Of course, yes.” Stevie could hear the smile in his voice.

“I mean, together. The two of you. It’s not— You’re not trying to—” He couldn’t find a way to express what he wanted to ask without sounding disgustingly full of himself.

“I do not— Hold on.” There was another muffled conversation, longer this time.

“Stevie?” Xabi said. “Are you asking if we are using each other as a substitute for you?”

“Um, yeah. I suppose I am, yeah,” Stevie said, cringing.

Xabi laughed. “No, we are not. It is how it started, but not any more. Now we are just us and we are happy that way.”

“Okay. Good.”

“Should we not have told you? Are you going to be weird again?”

“No, no, it’s fine. I asked. Probably better to get it all out in the open, yeah? Clear the air so we can all move on.”

“Exactly, yes.”

“I probably will be a bit weird about it for a while. Sorry. I won’t be a tit like last time though.”

“I know. Stevie, we are still your teammates, yes? That is the most important thing, above anything else. This is all just — don’t worry about it, okay? Don’t worry about us.”

“Right. No. Yeah. Look, I’d better get off and let you get, er, get back to it. Sorry for interrupting your evening.”

“Is not a problem. You are sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. ‘Night Xabi. Say goodnight to Nando for me.”

“Oh, I will,” Xabi said. “Goodnight.” He hung up, and Stevie tried really hard not to read any implications into the tone of Xabi’s voice.

He gave up and went to bed.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay. I was on a roll and then my inspiration failed me completely and then I was ill. The week long migraine from hell seems to have shaken somthing loose in my brain, so here, have another chapter.

The international break came as a relief. Not that Stevie was going anywhere, but it meant that he had some time to get his head sorted out before being confronted with Xabi and Fernando after their confession. How he had managed to forget that Fernando was also injured and therefore not in Spain, Stevie didn’t know.

“Hello, Stevie.” Fernando’s quiet voice made him jump, and he turned with his hand to his chest like some delicate lady in those period dramas his mum liked. Fernando was coming out of the physio’s office but he didn’t look particularly forlorn so Stevie assumed the news wasn’t too bad.

“Hi. Everything okay?”

Fernando nodded. “I have to rest a little then start light training. Nothing to worry about. I cannot drive for a couple of days.”

“You need a lift?”

“No, is okay. Olalla will—” he broke off as his phone buzzed. He pulled it out of his pocket and pulled a face at the screen. “Olalla will not pick me up. So, yes, a lift is good. Thank you.”

“No problem. I need a shower, then I’ll see you out front?”

“Sure.” Fernando beamed at him and Stevie found himself beaming back. 

Fernando was leaning against Stevie’s car when Stevie got outside, still fiddling with his phone. He looked up with a smile when Stevie approached and waved his phone at him. “Xabi says hello,” he said.

“Great. Tell him, uh, hello back, I guess.” They climbed into the car and Stevie started the engine. “Put something on if you want,” Stevie said, waving his hand at the radio. Fernando fiddled with it for a few minutes before settling on something he apparently liked. It made Stevie feel like he might be about to bleed from the ears. He turned the volume down a notch or five.

“Sorry,” Fernando said. “I can—” he moved to turn the radio off again but Stevie batted his hand away.

“It’s alright, lad. Leave it.” 

Stevie stared at the approaching junction, his mind suddenly a blank as he tried to remember where Fernando lived. It seemed important that he didn’t ask — Fernando had been at the club for a year now, Stevie had watched him get wanked off by his boyfriend, he’d listened to him and said boyfriend confess things they probably hadn’t planned on confessing. The least Stevie could do was remember where his bloody house was. It came to him at the last second — Pepe! He lived next door to Pepe. He flicked his indicator to turn right and eased around the corner with all the confidence of a man who knew exactly where he was going and what he was doing. 

“How’s it going, anyway? For your lot, I mean.”

“Good. We won our first match so, you know, it’s good.”

“Better if you’re there though, eh?”

“Of course.”

“Tell me about it,” Stevie said, rubbing his knee. They were quiet for a moment, Fernando nodding his head to the music. Stevie stifled a smile and kept his eyes on the road.

“For Spain there is many of me. For England, not so many of you, I think.”

It took Stevie a second to work out what he meant. “Hey. Neither of those things is true.” Fernando shrugged but didn’t push it. Stevie was never sure when he talked like this if he actually believed it or if he was just having a frustrated moment. Or perhaps he was trying to express something he simply didn’t have the words for. “Well, for what it’s worth, I think you’re brilliant. But you knew that anyway.”

“Thank you,” Fernando said, ducking his head the way he always did when someone paid him a compliment. “It is worth a lot. From you.” Now it was Stevie’s turn to feel embarrassed. They fell silent again. Stevie let out a rueful laugh and shook his head. “What is funny?”

“Us. You and me. We’re a pair, eh?”

“A pair? I don’t understand.”

“Like, we’re both— neither of us are good at the talking thing, y’know? Or maybe you are in Spanish, I don’t know. Maybe I should learn Spanish.”

“Maybe you should,” Fernando said with a sly smile. “But would be hard for you.”

“Oi. You saying I’m thick? Not that you’d be wrong, but it’s rude to point it out, mate.”

“No, no. I only meant that— I am surrounded by English all the time and still is hard for me. For you to learn Spanish would be hard.”

“Fine, I’ll let you off. Seeing as it’s you.”

“Thank you,” Fernando said with another of those smiles. Stevie forced his eyes back to the road. “You know, is not so important to be good at, uh, at the talking thing. To be quiet is good also.” Stevie nodded in agreement.

The trouble with being quiet was that there was no longer anything to distract Stevie from the noise pouring out of his speakers. “Sorry mate, I’ve got to ask. What the hell is this?”

“I admit, this band I do not know. But I like it.”

“You know, you really don’t look like someone who is into this stuff. Now Agger and Skrtel — actually the stuff they’re into is even worse. But still. I’d expect this from them, not you.

“Sorry I do not meet your expectations. You should, ah, how you say it? Open your mind, yes? People are not always how they look like.”

“Hey, I was just messing. Didn’t mean to offend.”

“I am not offended. It is just frustrated. People do not— you do not see me as— you do not see me.”

“Trust me Nando, I definitely see you.” Fernando pulled a face that was universal for ‘yeah, right’. “I do, okay. I do. We might have some communication problems off the pitch. But I do.” He wanted to add that if anyone didn’t see the other clearly it was how Fernando saw Stevie, but he held his tongue. There was a tension in the car and the wrong word could send the conversation down a path Stevie would prefer to avoid. If it wasn’t on that path already.

The song ended and Stevie actually recognised what came on next. “Okay, you know this, yes?” Fernando said. Stevie heaved a sigh of relief that Fernando seemed to be letting him off the hook. “You know Nirvana?”

“Yes I know Nirvana, smart arse. Some of the people in this car are old enough to have been around when this was actually new.”

“That is both of us, yes?”

“How old were you in 1994 again?”

“How old were you? You are not so much older than me.”

“Four years. That’s like a couple of decades in football years.”

“Okay, but in music it is just four years. And this song is from 1991.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t have encyclopaedic knowledge of the release dates of Nirvana’s songs.” The song ended and something else considerably less melodic took its place. Stevie didn’t know what his face was doing, but it made Fernando laugh.

“Okay, I agree some of this is not the best. It is your radio. You choose.”

Stevie prodded at the buttons until he found some Coldplay, then turned the volume back up to its previous level. Fernando groaned. “You are just like Xabi. No taste at all.”

“I dunno, I’d say we both have pretty good taste,” Stevie said, casting a glance at Fernando. He regretted it as soon as it was out of his stupid mouth but there was nothing he could do except hope that Fernando’s English wasn’t up to the task of picking up on what Stevie really meant.

“You do both have excellent taste in friends, I suppose,” Fernando mused. Stevie wasn’t sure if he’d got away with or not. He was saved by the fact they had arrived at Fernando’s house. Stevie stopped the car at the bottom of the drive, only to find Fernando watching him with an amused twist to his mouth.

“What, you want me to take you up the drive? Door to door service? Should I lay out my coat for you to step on as you enter the house?”

“That would be difficult as this is not my house.”

“It’s not?” Stevie looked around. “Which is it then?”

Fernando pointed straight ahead. “Turn left at the end and then the, um, second right. It is the third house along.”

“I didn’t even have the right street?” Fernando shook his head. “Fuck. Sorry, mate. I was sure this was it.” He peeled away from the kerb as Fernando laughed and a couple of minutes later he was turning onto Fernando’s street and pulling up outside the third house along. The gates were open and they could see Pepe’s wife Yolanda in the garden. She waved to them, looking confused. “You living with Reina’s missus now then?”

“It’s the next house. I meant fourth, not third. My English.”

“Your English. Right,” Stevie said, coasting down to the correct house. “It’s not that you forgot where you lived, then.”

“At least I had the right street.”

“Yes, but you live here.”

“Thank you for the lift, Stevie. And for tolerating my music taste.” He leaned across and kissed Stevie on the cheek. It wasn’t like it was the first time he’d done it. This time he smelled of aftershave and vaguely of that gel stuff the physios used. It was a perfectly normal Spanish thing, he knew. Wasn’t there like a code? One kiss meant you were friends, two meant you were really good friends, five meant you were fucking engaged or something. He should probably look this shit up. “Stevie, relax.” Fernando had pulled back but he was still unnervingly close. “It is just something between friends, it does not mean anything. But if it makes you uncomfortable I won’t—”

“No. No, it’s fine. You just caught me by surprise, that’s all.”

“Okay,” Fernando said, looking doubtful. “Well, I am sorry I surprised you then.” He opened the door and Stevie stopped him with a hand on his arm.

“Nando, wait.” Fernando turned back to him, and Stevie leaned forward and pressed his lips to his cheek. Fernando’s skin was warm and just a little rough. “We are friends, right?” he said as he pulled back.

“Of course.”

“Good. I’m glad.” The tension was back, hanging in the air between them. They weren’t really friends and they both knew it, but Stevie didn’t know how to get them there. Perhaps it was a lot to ask of one car journey.

“Bye, Stevie,” Fernando said, breaking away from the weird magnetism that held them in this conversation and getting out of the car. He slipped through the gates with a wave. After a couple of minutes staring after him, Stevie shook himself out of his stupor and drove home.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've fucked up the timeline, oops! For some reason I thought Stevie's arrest happened much earlier than it actually did. This is what I get for not checking the details before I start writing. Oh well. Creative licence. It's not like the timeline is super important anyway. Just pretend Stevie got arrested some time in October.
> 
> This chapter is almost entirely dialogue. Not sure how I feel about that, but anyway. That's how it came out.

Under the circumstances, Alex was considerably less pissed off than Stevie had thought she would be. Mostly she just looked tired and worried, her mouth set in tight lines and her eyes heavy. It took her three attempts to start the car. Guilt surged up in him again, twisting his stomach. Or maybe it was just his hangover. It was hard to tell.

“I am sorry, love,” he said for possibly the hundredth time that night. Morning. It was morning now.

“What the hell were you thinking? What happened?”

“The coppers didn’t tell you?”

“They told me some cock and bull story about him not playing the music you wanted. They might have swallowed it but I am your wife, Steven, and I don’t believe I married a man who would beat someone up over Phil Collins.”

“I didn’t beat him up Alex, Jesus, give me some credit. It was a fight. It’s not my fault my mates decided to jump all over him.”

“They’re your mates, love.”

“I know.”

“What really happened?” She took a corner too fast, her driving more aggressive than usual. His stomach churned and he leaned forward with a groan, massaging his pounding head. For a second her fingers slipped into his hair, her nails scratching sympathetically at his scalp. “Alright. Let’s get you home and get some coffee in you. Then we can talk.”

They drove the rest of the way in silence, Stevie sipping pathetically at his bottle of Lucozade. Every so often Alex would take her hand off the steering wheel or gear stick to touch his knee. It seemed she was inclined towards forgiving him for dragging her out of bed in the middle of the night to go collect him from the police station in front of the press and every gawker walking past on the street. He suspected actual forgiveness hinged on his explanation of what had really happened. He took a deeper swallow of his drink.

Once home, Alex ensconced him at the kitchen table and wouldn’t let him move or talk until he had something in him to ‘deal with whatever the hell you were drinking last night’. Stevie was more than happy to comply. He laid his head on the table and closed his eyes, and didn’t move until he heard a plate and a mug being placed on the table in front of him. The room wavered a little as he lifted his head. “Thanks, love.” She didn’t say anything, just sat watching him with her legs crossed and her face inscrutable as she sipped her own drink.

The coffee was strong and sweet, and the bacon and sausage sandwich she had made him was definitely not on his diet sheet but that ship had already sailed. He felt a lot better when he had finished them, though that twisty feeling in his stomach still remained. Maybe it was guilt after all.

“Alright,” Alex said eventually, apparently satisfied that he was now fit for human communication. “What happened?”

Stevie thought for a minute. “Some of what the coppers told you was true. I did ask if we could play some Phil Collins and he was a twat about it. I was annoyed ‘cause— his attitude, y’know? But I let it go, it wasn’t worth starting trouble over.”

“So he ended up in hospital because…”

“I’m getting to it, okay? Just let me think.”

“Oh, now you want to start thinking.”

“It was later. He said something else. And I couldn’t let it go.”

“What was it?”

“It was about Nando.”

Alex’s eyebrows disappeared into her hair. “Honey, if you’re going to be starting fights every time someone talks shit about Fernando Torres then you’re going to be spending a lot of time in the cells.”

“No, I know that. It wasn’t just— I’m not going to repeat exactly what he said. I’m not sure I can remember exactly what he said, to be honest. But it was nasty. It was a nasty, horrible, homophobic thing, and I just— I didn’t like hearing that stuff about— about him. I lost it, okay. I admit, I lost it.”

“Okay. Okay, so you hit him for being a bigot. I get that. Except, I don’t really— look, I don’t like people going around being homophobic dickheads either, but it can’t have been anything you haven’t heard before. But now you’re starting fights over it? And why didn’t you tell the police any of this?”

“You’re right, I have heard it all before. I’ve heard worse, even. But things are different now, I’m—” Stevie took a deep breath and ran his hands through his hair. “Look, I didn’t tell the police because anything I say to them is going to end up in court, and anything that ends up in court is going to end up in the press. I didn’t want people looking at what happened and wondering about me defending Nando like that and then going digging. Because then they might find something.”

“About Fernando?”

“And— and Xabi.”

Alex’s mug landed on the table with a clatter. “Fernando and Xabi? You mean they’re, like, together?” Stevie nodded. “Well. Well. Fuck me.”

“Yeah. That was kinda my reaction.” Perhaps a little more literally than Alex meant it but he didn’t think he was ready to tell her that. Didn’t know if she was ready to hear it.

“Wait. Don’t they both have girlfriends?”

“Yup.”

“Well, that’s… disappointing. I had them both down as good guys.”

Stevie shook his head. “They’re not cheating.”

“How are they not cheating?”

“Apparently Nagore and Olalla know all about it and are quite happy with the situation.”

“So they’re like a cover? To make them look straight? Damn, that’s one convincing cover.”

“Nope. The relationships are real. They have genuine, apparently perfectly happy and functional relationships with their girlfriends. And then a completely separate perfectly happy and functional relationship with each other.”

“Huh.” Alex rubbed her hand over her eyes. “I haven’t had enough sleep for this.” She picked up her discarded coffee and sipped at it, frowning. “I think I get it though,” she said after a couple of minutes.

“You do?”

“Yeah. I mean, it’s perfectly possible to be in love with two people at once. And no one relationship can give you everything you need. Most people get what they need from friends and family, but if everyone’s open to it I suppose you could get it from another romantic relationship. As long as there’s trust and communication then I can see how it would work. Hard work though. God. One relationship’s difficult enough. I mean, you know I love you but there are times— Stevie? You okay?”

Stevie closed his mouth. “Yeah. Uh, how are you okay with this so quickly? I’ve known about it for weeks and I still don’t get it.”

“See, some of us think about things other than football some times. That way, when we are confronted with something new we don’t flounder around in a panic because we don’t have a ball to kick.”

“Very funny.”

“Have you considered that maybe you’re overthinking things.”

“First I don’t think enough, then I think too much.”

“It’s not that you think too much it’s— okay, I was mostly joking about you only thinking about football but I do think that sometimes you tend to leave your heart on the pitch and forget to apply it to other things. That’s all.”

“Hey. I applied it to you well enough, didn’t I?”

“I thought that was a different part of your anatomy.”

“I’ve been in love with you since we met and you know it. I didn’t chase you all that time just to get my end away. I could have done that anywhere.” Alex burst out laughing. “Shut up, you know what I mean.”

“This is the romantic streak that finally won me over,” Alex cackled. 

Stevie glared and pushed some crumbs around his plate. “Some days I wish hadn’t bothered.”

“What, you mean the days where I make you bacon sandwiches after dragging your stupid arse back from the police station?”

“Fine. Maybe not those days.”

“I’m just saying. Sometimes you need to feel your way through stuff and not worry about it so much. And it’s their business anyway. If they’re all happy with the arrangement then does it really matter if we understand it or not?”

“Yeah. Right. Yeah, doesn’t matter.”

“How did you find out, anyway?”

“I, uh, kinda walked in on them.”

“Doing what?”

“What, you want a diagram? Doing each other, what does it matter?”

“Huh. Interesting.”

“What does that mean?”

“Nothing,” Alex said with a distant smile.

“Stop picturing it, you pervert.”

“Sorry.”

“Anyway, am I forgiven?”

“Aren’t you always? You were defending Fernando’s honour, and Xabi’s too, I suppose. Just don’t fucking do it again.” She got up, walked round the table, and sat in his lap with her arms draped round his neck. She pecked him on the lips with a smile. “Idiot.”

“I won’t. Promise.” He leaned his head against her shoulder, his stomach still twisted up and his head a mess.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, [Stevie was arrested](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/merseyside/7802932.stm) for [affray and assault](http://www.theguardian.com/football/2008/dec/29/steven-gerrard-arrest-bar-brawl-fight) on 29th September 2008. The fight [started over music](http://www.theguardian.com/football/2009/jul/21/steven-gerrard-court-trial) (a crappy excuse for a fight, I like my version better) and escalated from there. Stevie's friends later [attacked the man](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/liverpool/5894768/Steven-Gerrard-sorry-over-fight-that-landed-him-in-court.html) because apparently Stevie knows some lovely people.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I have two chapters to go after this one. Nearly there! I'm expecting a baby in October and I want to get all outstanding fics finished before then since it will be a while before I can write anything after that.
> 
> I know very little about golf and tbh there's a limit to how much I'm prepared to learn about it. Let me know if I've made any catastrophic errors.

Stevie always felt like a prat at the golf club. No matter how much time he spent there part of him was constantly on edge, waiting for the hand on the shoulder and the stern voice asking him what he thought he was doing. Nobody at the club had ever been anything but friendly and polite to him, but he could feel the solicitors and accountants judging him as he walked through the bar. Well, sod them. He had as much right to be there as anyone else.

There were rather more sideways glances than usual, probably because of The Incident, as Alex had taken to calling it, being all over the papers. Or perhaps because there were forty two footballers milling about the place. One or the other. “Gerrard, what time do you call this?” Carra called, earning a glare from the barman that he didn’t even notice. “’On the dot’ you said.” He tapped his watch. “This is well past the dot.”

“Fuck off, it’s like three minutes past the dot.” 

“Stevie,” Fernando said, worming his way through the crowd, Pepe in tow. “Stevie, I am sorry. I forget my clubs.”

Stevie smiled. “Nice try, Torres. I thought after last time you might ‘forget’ so I brought a spare set for you.”

“Damn it.”

“Have you ever even used those clubs you bought?” Pepe said. Fernando shook his head.

“No. They still have on their plastic.”

Pepe’s laughter boomed through the room. The barman’s glare intensified. “Stevie, I cannot stay long. Only an hour.”

“Now hang on a minute,” Stevie began.

“You said attendance was obligatory, you did not say how long the attendance had to be for.” Pepe grinned, apparently unimpressed by Stevie’s best ‘I am your captain how dare you’ expression. “I have to pick up the girls.”

Fernando groaned. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

“Because you don’t have kids?” Stevie said. 

“You should get some,” Pepe advised. “They’re the ultimate excuse. Get you out of practically anything.”

“I do not think that’s a good reason for having children,” Fernando said with a frown.

Stevie dug his car keys out of his pocket. “Your clubs are in the boot of my car. I have to sort out the groups.” 

“Already sorted out,” Pepe said as Fernando took Stevie’s keys with a defeated sigh and headed towards the carpark. “We did it while we were waiting for you to show up. You are with me and Fernando and Xabi.”

“Really?” The groups were chosen by lot, the idea being to mix people up instead of everyone just sticking with their friends. The chances of this particular group ending up together seemed rather slim. Pepe shrugged.

“That is how it came out. You want to do it again? You’ll have to be quick,” he added, as, under the guidance of Carra, the squad began to disperse, some towards the course, others towards the snooker room. 

“No, leave it. Re-doing it’ll take time, and the sooner we get everyone out of the Clubhouse the happier the other members will be.”

“Worried we’re going to get you kicked out?”

“Nah, not really. See that lot in the corner?” Pepe craned his head round not at all subtly to look at the group Stevie had indicated. “Completely trashed the place last Christmas and they’re still allowed in. Lawyers are the worst.”

“Are any of them yours? Just wondering,” he added at Stevie’s narrow-eyed look. “I assume you have a good one, you know, with… everything.” He trailed off a little at the end, apparently aware that he had crossed a line. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine, Pepe, don’t worry about it. I’ve heard pretty much every joke going at this point.”

“Oh, do you know this one? A footballer, a banker and a politician go to prison and—”

“Reina! Know when to stop, mate.”

“Sorry.”

“Where’s Xabi, anyway?” Stevie said looking around the much emptier and quieter Clubhouse. “He’s not trying to skive off too is he?”

“He was here earlier. He was with me when I drew the lots for the groups.”

Xabi mysteriously missing, and Fernando still not back from the car. Stevie hoped they knew the car park had security cameras. Just then, Xabi emerged from the gents’ toilets and Fernando appeared through the main doors, dragging Stevie’s spare clubs behind him. Stevie shook his head at himself. He probably thought about those two having sex more than they did. He needed to get a grip.

~~

“You know what the problem is, mate?” Stevie said as Fernando’s ball disappeared once more into the trees.

“That I do not give a shit about my golf swing?”

“No. Well, yeah, that’s probably at the root of it, but— here.” He moved behind Fernando, reached his arms around him, and took his hands. Fernando relaxed against him, allowing Stevie to manhandle him as he pleased, and fuck he had not thought this through. Stevie took a deep breath. Fernando’s aftershave was something woodsy that Stevie hadn’t smelled before — God, when had he started cataloging Fernando’s smells? Fernando’s hair brushed Stevie’s cheek as he adjusted his grip and Stevie could see the pulse fluttering too fast in his throat. Stevie adjusted his stance too, nudging his feet apart, tilting his hips and pushing down his shoulders. By the time he stepped back there was a light flush on Fernando’s cheeks that Stevie could feel burning in his own.

“Was I doing anything right?” Fernando joked, but his voice was quiet and too tight.

“Not really.” Stevie’s voice wasn’t much better. “But you don’t give a shit about your golf swing, right?”

“Right.”

Stevie dropped a ball onto the tee and stepped back to allow Fernando to take another shot. This time the ball flew more or less in the direction of the green. Fernando looked over at Stevie and grinned. “See?” Stevie said. “This is good, yeah?”

“No. I still hate golf. But playing with you is okay.”

It was ridiculous to be so pleased at what was barely even a compliment, but Stevie could feel an answering grin spreading across his own face. Fernando’s eyes shifted to something over Stevie’s shoulder, and his grin shifted too, into something softer and more intimate. Stevie turned to find Xabi watching them, while Pepe examined a putter like it was the most fascinating thing he had ever seen.

“You know, you are not exactly Tiger Woods yourself,” Xabi said as they walked on.

“And you are?”

“No. Perhaps you need to teach me too.”

“Perhaps.”

“You seemed to enjoy showing Fernando what to do.” Xabi’s voice was laced with amusement, even smugness. Stevie didn’t dare look at him.

“Well, it’s always good to pass on your knowledge. And, y’know, it’s nice to see someone improving their skills.”

“Of course.” Xabi was outright laughing at him now and Stevie risked a glance at him. Laughter lines creased around his mouth and his eyes were lit up and he looked… beautiful. It was the only word Stevie could think of and he couldn’t remember ever applying it to another man before. Not really, not consciously, as an actual label. He drew in a sharp breath. Xabi smiled wider and tilted his head back to indicate the presence of the uncharacteristically quiet Pepe, who was now studying the trees as he walked along behind them.

Something beeped from Pepe’s direction. He glanced at his watch then broke into a smile which he quickly smoothed out into an expression of regret, or at least an attempt at it. “Ah, time for me to go. Sorry, Stevie.”

Stevie couldn’t even be bothered to summon up a pretense at annoyance. It wasn’t like this group was adhering to the team-bonding premise of the outing anyway. He waved Pepe away with a smile and a promise that the next thing Stevie made them do wouldn’t involve golf.

By the time they reached Fernando’s wayward ball the trees had thinned out and they could see the other groups making their way around the course. In the distance Stevie could see the Clubhouse and, here and there, the tell-tale flash of camera lenses around the perimeter of the club. Presumably the prospect of Liverpool players armed with golf clubs was too much for the paparazzi to resist.

Fernando’s ball wasn’t in the trees this time but it was in a bunker. Fernando heaved a sigh and jumped down into the sand. Xabi laughed. “Fuck off, Xabi. Where is your ball?” Fernando grumbled.

“I think in that water over there,” Xabi said, pointing.

“Good.” Fernando swung his club viciously. “I hate this game,” he said as sand flew up around him and the ball remained in place.

~~

The eighteenth hole. Finally. It seemed to have taken forever. In reality it had taken about four and a half hours, which was not an outrageously long time, though that was largely because on more than one occasion they had just skipped the actual getting the ball in the hole part. This was one of the most exhausting games of golf Stevie had played in his life, even if it was also one of the most fun. 

“Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask you guys,” Stevie said as he adjusted the tilt of Xabi’s hips. He could feel Xabi’s attention shift from the ball to him. “Does Pepe know? About you two, I mean.” He moved to stand beside Fernando as Xabi took his swing, and the three of them watched in resignation as the ball disappeared to god knew where.

“Yes, Pepe knows,” Fernando said.

“Oh.”

“He figured it out,” Xabi said. “He knows us well and is more, um, observant than his, you know, his personality would make you think.”

“Also, he lives next door to me and he has a balcony that overlooks part of my garden and one time…” Fernando glanced at Xabi.

“One time we, how can I put it? He saw us confirming something he had already guessed at.”

“Right.”

“He’s the only person that knows. Apart from you.”

“That you know of.”

“What do you mean?” 

“Just — I walked in on you twice, once at my place and once in the locker room. Pepe saw you in Nando’s garden. You’re not exactly discreet. Maybe someone else has seen you.”

“We’re discreet, Stevie, trust us. Your party was a drunk mistake that hadn't happened before and won’t happen again. In the locker room, we knew the only person around was you. Pepe saw a glimpse of us in a private place where the only people who would be able to see us would be people we don’t mind seeing us.”

“Nobody else knows, Stevie, we are sure of it,” Fernando said.

“Fair enough. Wait. Alex knows. I told her, sorry.”

They both nodded. “We assumed you would,” Xabi said.

“What about me? Does Pepe know about me?” They both frowned, Fernando’s eyes narrowing and Xabi’s mouth turning down in that way it did when something disappointed him. He had done it again, blundered over a line he didn’t even know was there.

“We would not do that,” Xabi said. “It is not for us to tell.”

“Sorry. One day you’re going to have to explain the rules of this game, mate.”

“For that you would have to tell us what game you want to play.”

Xabi was right. Stevie had been sending mixed signals, he knew. Saying he didn’t want anything then getting handsy with Fernando, flirting with Xabi. He wasn’t being fair. He had told them what he wanted, or didn’t want, and they had respected that and backed off.

Except, wait. They hadn’t. They hadn’t backed off at all. Xabi’s hand on his arm, warm and gentle and unnecessary. Fernando’s lips lingering on Stevie’s cheek, just for a second, as his breath ghosted across Stevie’s skin. The group arrangements today, a coincidence so unlikely it couldn’t actually be a coincidence. Stevie stopped dead in the middle of placing his ball on the tee and straightened up. _In the locker room we knew the only person around was you._ He turned to the other two.

“Did you take my keys?” They looked at him with matching bewildered expressions, and Xabi patted his pockets as though checking for keys. Fernando’s confusion cleared almost immediately, though he quickly tried to put it back again.

“Keys?” he asked.

“The other week, in the locker room. When I saw you together. Did you take my keys?”

“Um,” Fernando said.

“You fucking did. You took my keys so I’d have to come back inside and oh, look, there they are, up against the lockers. My locker, don’t think I didn’t notice. Was that to make sure I didn’t miss the show? Were you hoping the repeat performance would have a different ending?”

“Stevie, no, it was not like that,” Xabi said.

“Oh, so you were just trying to get me into your car so you could ‘accidentally’ let slip that story about getting together because of me?”

“No, we were trying to get you into my car because we knew you had questions you were avoiding and we hoped being alone would push you into asking them. Which it did.”

“So you did take my keys.”

“Yes, Stevie, we took your keys. Well, I took your keys. We didn’t know what else to do, you didn’t leave us with a lot of choice.”

“You’re blaming this on me? You knew I wasn’t ready for this. You knew. And you still pushed it. And then acted like you weren’t pushing it.” Part of him knew he was over-reacting, but he was tired of feeling like the only person who didn’t know what was going on while everyone else swanned around like they had their shit together. Fuck it. Why should he be the only one confused and angry? He turned on Fernando, who had always been the easiest for Stevie to rile up, though usually it was by accident. “You. I told you, flat out, I told you that I couldn’t do this. I thought you got it. But no.”

“I know, Stevie, I’m sorry,” Fernando said, shamefaced. But as gratifying as the moral high-ground was, Fernando’s contrition wasn’t the reaction he wanted. 

“I mean, what did you think was going to happen? A few kisses on the cheek and I was going to walk away from my wife and kids and join you and Xabi in your little game? This is a joke. This whole thing is just a joke.” There it was. The narrowed eyes and clenched jaw that said Fernando Torres was royally pissed off. Xabi too, judging by the set of his shoulders and the glare he was giving Stevie. “You call this a relationship but honestly, it’s a farce. Don’t kid yourselves.”

“Fuck you, Stevie,” Fernando spat.

“Oh, you wish.”

“I did.” Fernando eyed him like he was something disgusting and Stevie found himself shrinking under his disdain. He reminded himself that he was the one who had been wronged here and straightened his shoulders. “I do not know what I was thinking.”

Xabi stepped in between them. “We are the ones playing games, Stevie?” He sounded perfectly calm but anger simmered beneath every word. “What about you, hmm? You were all over us today. Was it really necessary for you to spend so much time on the precise angle of Fernando’s forearms? Was it necessary to press quite so close against me when you showed me what was wrong with my swing? No. But you did it anyway. You knew how we felt about you and you still thought it was okay to taunt us with what you’d already told us we couldn’t have.” Xabi was inches away from him. Too close to hit properly. Close enough to kiss. Xabi jerked back, pulled by Fernando’s hand on his arm. Fernando shook his head at Xabi and nodded towards the Clubhouse. They were out in public. Very much in public. Stevie took a step back too, and for a moment the three of them stood there glaring, Xabi and Fernando on one side of the tee box, Stevie on the other. “We are not the ones kidding ourselves. Look at you.”

Stevie didn’t have a response to that that wouldn’t land him on the front pages again, so he pushed past them and stalked off to the Clubhouse. Past the waiter who avoided his eye, past Carra on the terrace who didn’t even attempt to speak to him, past Sami who did, and out into the car park. He went to put his clubs in his car before realising he’d left them out on the course. Well, he wasn’t going back for them. He slammed the boot shut, climbed into the car and sped out of the car park. He took a deep breath, and then another, and forced himself to slow down. The last thing he needed right now was to get done for speeding.

His hands shook and he gripped the wheel tighter as it hit him anew how badly he had misread practically every interaction he’d had with them over the last few months. How nothing had been what he thought. How dishonest their honesty had been. How quickly the day, and their friendship, had gone downhill. 

All this time he’d been so grateful for them being understanding and patient with him and it turned out they’d been nothing of the kind. His whole life had been turned upside down by their drunken mistake, if that’s what it even was, if that hadn’t been deliberate too. He’d defended Fernando and risked going to prison for protecting their secret. And, sure, prison was highly unlikely, but the world now thought he was someone who started fights over fucking Phil Collins. And this was the thanks he got.

He took a couple more deep breaths and focused on his own anger and the fact that he was _right_ , dammit, and pushed down the sick feeling that, not for the first time in his life, his temper had made him go way too far.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can't write a fic involving Xabi & Stevie without it also involving draaamaaa. It's the law.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little less conversation, a little more action please...  
> This chapter is dialogue heavy. Again. Sorry.

This was ridiculous, Stevie thought as he set the candles in the middle of the table. Candles! For dinner with Carra and Nicola. Alex had spent most of the day in the kitchen, pouring over Delia Smith and Jamie Oliver and piecing together the perfect menu. Stevie’s observation that their friends would be just as happy with a McDonalds had not been received well.

He straightened up the last knife, knowing that no matter what he did it would not please his wife’s critical eye, and went through to the kitchen.

“Table’s done.”

“Thanks, love,” Alex said as she checked the oven with the distracted air of someone more concerned about her cheese tarts than her husband.

“You need me to do anything else?”

“Pass me that fork.” She moved him gently aside so she could open a drawer. “And then get out of my kitchen.”

“Come on, I can help,” he said, handing her the fork. “You need me to whisk anything or stir anything? I got you one of those little blow-torch things for… whatever it is you need a little blow-torch thing for. I could do that.”

“I don’t need anything blow-torching, I need you to get out of my way.” She moved him aside again, a little less gently this time.

“But—”

“Get out of my kitchen, Gerrard.”

Stevie got out.

For lack of anything useful to do — he thought about cleaning, but the house was spotless — he ended up wandering aimlessly around. He flicked the TV on and channel-hopped for a while, pacing the living room. He wandered down to the basement and played snooker with himself, but he wasn’t much competition. Darts resulted in three holes in the plaster beside the dartboard, one dart buried so deep he struggled to get it out. He had been like this for days and was annoying even himself, let alone Alex, whose attempts to get him to talk had resulted in three arguments and one long sulk. 

He ended up at Lexie’s room, leaning against the doorframe in the way he did when he watched her sleep. It wasn’t quite the same when she was at Alex’s mum’s instead of in her bed, but it was still soothing to be there amongst the pink wallpaper and Disney Princess curtains. Stevie wasn’t sure of much these days, if he ever had been, but he never doubted this.

~~

“That was delicious, Alex,” Nicola said, scraping the last bit of lemon-something off her plate.

“It was. Well done, love,” Stevie said, leaning over to kiss her cheek. Alex rolled her eyes at him.

“He wanted McDonalds.” Nicola laughed.

“I didn’t say I wanted McDonalds. I just said, y’know, that McDonalds would be good enough for these two.”

“Thanks, Stevie,” Nicola said.

“Eh, McDonalds would’ve been alright,” Carra said. “But this is better,” he added hurriedly when Nicola glared at him.

Alex shook her head and stood up. “You’re both hopeless. Pass me your plate, Jamie.”

“I’ll help you,” Nicola said, standing up too.

“You sure you don’t want me to do it?” Stevie said, looking up in surprise. He always did the clearing up, that’s what they did. Alex cooked and Stevie cleaned up after her.

“No, it’s fine,” Alex said a little too airily. “We’ll load the dishwasher and have a natter in the kitchen.” She plucked a half-finished bottle of wine from the table. “You two stay here and, I don’t know, have a brandy or something.” Alex and Nicola swept out of the dining room leaving Carra finishing off his wine with a frown and Stevie wondering just when he became someone who had candlelit dinners where the women retired to another room afterwards and left the men to drink brandy.

“You got any brandy, mate?” Carra said, peering over at the sideboard.

“Sure, I think so.” Why not? A mock-Georgian dinner party for their mock-Georgian house. He crossed to the sideboard and took out two glasses and a bottle of Cognac. It was quite clear that tonight was less about ‘having some friends round for a nice dinner’ and more about Stevie being left alone with Carra. He may as well make the most of it. He returned to the table and poured a generous splash into each glass.

They sipped in silence for a while, before Carra put his glass down with a sigh.

“You going to tell me what’s going on, mate?”

“I’d rather not, to be honest.” 

“Stevie—”

“Do we have to do this? Can’t you just leave it?”

“Wish I could. But I’m under orders from both your missus and our boss. I’m more scared of Alex, truth be told, but I don’t exactly want to be pissing off the gaffer either. So.” He picked up his glass again and took a big swallow. “What’s up with you and Xabi and Torres.”

“What makes you think anything’s up?”

Carra stared at him like he’d just declared that Everton are alright after all. “Seriously? You three have been weird for I don’t even know how long. Since the summer at least. One minute you’re fine and the next the atmosphere’s so tense it’s infectious. Any given day it’s fifty-fifty whether you’re even speaking to each other. The lads take bets on it, you know. Reina’s making a fortune. That argument he had with Kuyt last week? He accused him of cheating, saying he had inside information because he’s friends with them.” Stevie frowned. He wasn’t aware of Pepe having any argument with anyone, let alone Dirk who was generally pretty laid-back. “Jesus, you don’t even know. Fucking hell. This is why I’m getting called into Rafa’s fucking office and told to sort you out. You’re the captain and you don’t have the first idea what’s happening in your team because your head’s— I don’t even know where your head is these days. And I haven’t even started on what happened at the golf club.”

Stevie winced. “That was…” He still didn’t have any idea what that was. He knew he couldn’t explain to Carra the churning anger and regret in the pit of his stomach every time he thought about it.

“That was a fucking disaster, that was. Or nearly. Never thought I’d be so glad to see you storm off in a huff.”

“Don’t be so melodramatic.”

“I’m not. D’you even realise how big an audience you had, all watching to see who would snap first? Clever money was on Alonso braining you with a nine iron, by the way.”

“Xabi wouldn’t do that.”

Carra snorted. “I wouldn’t be so sure.”

Stevie heaved a sigh. “Look, it’s not— I can’t tell you, okay?”

“Sure.”

“I mean it. Not mine to tell, is it? Not really. It involves other people who aren’t— I can’t just go around blabbing other people’s secrets.”

“Fair enough. Can you talk about it without talking about it?”

“Maybe? No, I don’t think so. It’s complicated. Really, mate, you have no idea.” Stevie drummed his fingers against his knee. “I fucked up.” Carra snorted. “Seriously, I did.”

“Seriously, I believe you.”

“They fucked up too, but theirs was— I dunno. Well intentioned, I suppose. At least not deliberate. But mine…”

“Let me guess. You got pissed off and instead of calming down and being reasonable about it you let yourself get angrier and angrier. No, you made yourself get angrier and angrier. Until you exploded.”

“You know, I really don’t think you’re someone who should be lecturing people about being calm and reasonable.”

“I’m not the one starting fights over Phil Collins and getting arrested and having slanging matches with my teammates in public, am I?”

Stevie groaned. “Can everyone just let the Phil Collins thing go? It had nothing to do with this.”

“So it had nothing to do with the mood you’ve been in lately? Come on, Stevie. It had everything to do with this. And nobody’s letting the Phil Collins thing go any time soon, so you might as well learn to live with it.”

Stevie braced his elbows on his knees and hid his face in his hands. “I’ve fucked everything up, Carra. And I don’t know what to do.”

“Easy. You fucked up, they fucked up. You apologise, they apologise. They both think the sun shines out of your arse, they’ll forgive you.”

Stevie pulled his hands away to glare at Carra. “They do not think—” Stevie began, then gave up. “That’s stupid anyway. It’s like when you get into fights at school and the headmaster would make everyone shake hands and expect everything to be fixed. It doesn’t resolve the real problem and everyone’s fighting in the playground again two days later.”

Carra stared at him. “So resolve the real problem then,” he said like Stevie was an idiot. 

“Oh, silly me. Why didn’t I think of that? What do you think I’ve been trying to do?”

“Fuck knows what you’ve been trying to do, mate. But I do know you’ve been making a real hash of it. If Alex is coming to me because she doesn’t know what to do with you any more, things are pretty bad.”

“Yeah.”

“Whatever you need to do to sort this out, just fucking do it, Stevie. Just do it. Pull yourself together, take a deep breath, and do it.”

“Yeah, I know. I know." He heaved a sigh. "I need to talk to Alex.”

Carra nodded. “You want me and Nic to clear out?”

“Thanks, mate. No time like the present, eh?” Carra clapped him on the shoulder and stood up, holding out a hand to help Stevie up. 

They made their way to the kitchen and found Alex and Nicola leaning against the counter, talking quietly. They stopped and looked up as Stevie and Carra walked in. “Coffee?” Alex asked.

Carra shook his head. “Thanks, but we’d better be getting off.”

Nicola looked a little surprised but didn’t argue. Stevie and Alex walked them to the door and saw them off with much waving and hugging and promises to do this again soon. Then they were gone.

The house suddenly seemed huge, the marble-clad hallway rendered cavernous rather than elegant by the absence of anyone but Stevie and Alex and the things Stevie didn’t want to talk about. The distant hiss of the dishwasher was the only thing that could be heard underneath the silence. 

He followed the click-clack of her heels through the house and back into the kitchen, then sat down and attempted to translate his thoughts into words while she busied around making coffee. 

“Alright,” Alex said as she passed him his coffee and sat beside him. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on now?”

Stevie nodded. “I don’t really know where to start.”

“The beginning?”

“Yeah. Maybe. No. Not there, that’s not really the— okay. You remember what I told you after the, y’know, after the fight?”

“You’re going to have to be more specific. You mean the fight with a stranger where you got arrested? The fight with Xabi and Fernando that I found out about from Nicola because you wouldn’t tell me? The fight with me that resulted in you sulking in the gym for hours on end? The other fight with me that resulted in me having to ask Carra for help because my own husband won’t fucking talk to me?”

Stevie winced. “The first one. The one in the bar. I wasn’t totally honest with you.” He risked a glance up. Alex’s face was like stone, yet still managed to convey the fact that she was already mentally packing his bags for him. “When I said I hit that guy because I didn’t like him saying that stuff about Nando, that wasn’t entirely— I mean it was true but that was only part of it.” _Pull yourself together, take a deep breath, and do it._ "The truth is, I didn’t like him saying that stuff about— about me.”

“About you.”

“Yeah.”

Alex sat back and took a sip of her coffee. “Okay.”

“Okay? That’s all you have to say?”

“What do you want me to say?”

“I— I don’t know.”

“Do you want me to shout and scream about how appalled I am and how you’ve betrayed me? Because I don’t really feel that way, but if it will make you feel better I’m sure I can summon up some anger from somewhere and give it a shot.”

“What? Of course not.”

“Then what do you—”

“I don’t fucking know. I’ve been tying myself up in knots about this and all you can say is fucking ‘okay’?”

“I’ve always suspected. I had no idea that was what the problem was, but it’s not a big shock.”

“You've always... How come you’ve always suspected and I haven’t?”

“Love, I think it’s well established that this isn’t exactly your forte.” A smile pulled at the corner of her lips.

“This isn’t fucking funny, Alex. I’ve been going through a— an identity crisis here.”

“I know. And I get that and I get that it’s hard to go through that and tell me what you just did and have me react like it’s not a big deal. But you are the one who’s made this far harder than it needed to be. I don’t want to make this about me. But I’m the one who has to live with you and I’m the one who has to explain to the girls that Daddy’s having some problems at work and it’s making him grumpy at home, because I don’t know what else to tell them. So it is kind of about me.”

Stevie groaned. “Fuck. I’ve been trying not to let this impact the girls, I really have.”

“Well, you fucked that up royally if that’s the case. Lil asked me flat-out last night if she had done something to make you cross. And Lexie’s been so crotchety lately because she’s picking up on the tension in the house, even if she isn’t old enough to understand why she's upset.”

“God, Alex, I’m so sorry. I didn’t want any of this. The girls, and you, are the whole reason I’ve been trying to— I’ve been trying to…”

“What? Deny it? Stevie, why?” She didn’t look like stone anymore, just sad and hurt. Stevie felt sick. “What did you think I would do if you told me? Kick you out? Is that what you think of me? What have I done to make you think I’m like that?”

“Nothing! It’s not you, it’s me, I—” He broke off with a small laugh. Alex bit her lip. “Did I really just say ‘it’s not you, it’s me’?”

“You really did.”

“Christ.” He scrubbed his hands across his face. “I didn’t think people actually said shit like that. Anyway, it’s true. It’s not you. I was the one who— I couldn’t accept it. When you’ve spent your whole life thinking you’re one thing and then you suddenly realise you’re something else, and you don’t even know what that something else is. It’s hard. I didn’t know what to do with it so I ignored it and hoped it would go away. I just made everything worse, didn’t I?”

“Pretty much. You muppet. Just so we’re clear for the future: I don’t give a fuck. I am your wife and as long as I remain your wife and you treat me like your wife I don’t give a toss if you’re eyeing up good-looking blokes as well as good-looking women.”

“I know. I already knew that. I just got myself in a tangle.”

“Has this got anything to do with Xabi and Fernando?”

“Um…”

“It’s just, you’ve been weird since that party where you walked in on them. I’m just putting two and two together.”

“Yeah, that’s something else I need to tell you.” Alex gave him a sideways look. “I was getting to it, I was getting to it. I promise. No more keeping things from you, I swear.”

“Okay.”

“You know they have this, um, arrangement?” Alex nodded. “Well, they kind of want me to be part of it.”

“Oh.” She nodded slowly, like she was mulling it over. “Part of it in what way? Like, for sex or to have a relationship with them?”

“I’m not totally sure.” Alex didn’t roll her eyes at this, but she managed to make him feel like she had anyway. “Oh, come on, are you surprised? We both know I’ve been screwing this up. Of course I’m not sure, because I haven’t bloody asked them and I’ve been avoiding talking about it as much as possible. But I think they’re thinking relationship.”

“Is that what you want?”

Stevie took a deep breath. “I think so, yeah.”

“Right. Well, I don’t think that’s something you should do.”

Relief warred with crushing disappointment. “Yeah. Fair enough, I get that.”

“I don’t object in theory. If you’d told me all this earlier then I probably would have told you to go for it.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I think so. But Stevie, these last few weeks…” She abandoned her now-cold coffee and began chewing on a nail, something he hadn’t seen her do for years. “When you told me about them and their girlfriends and their relationships, I was curious. I knew it was a thing people did, but I’ve never actually met anyone who did it. I thought it was all weird American religious types. So I looked stuff up, did some reading.”

“Huh. Maybe I should’ve done that.”

“Yes, you should. Would’ve saved us all a lot of trouble. I didn’t read loads, but everything I did read said the same thing: trust is vital, communication is vital. And if the last few weeks have shown us anything, it’s that you are really bad at at least one of those things. I just don’t think you’re cut out for this kind of relationship. Unfortunately.”

“What d’you mean, ‘unfortunately’? You want me to do this? Or is this something you would want? For you, I mean. Do you want relationships with other people?” It hadn’t even occurred to him.

“Yeah, I think I do. I don’t have anyone in particular in mind, but I’d be open to the idea, if I met someone.”

“Oh.”

“You’re not the only one who’s been reconsidering a few things about themselves, you know. I know it’s not quite the same thing, but I’ve been struggling too. And I guess I didn’t tell you about it either. Maybe neither of us is cut out for that kind of relationship.”

“Or maybe now we’ll both be better at it.”

“Maybe. Would you be okay with that? Me being with someone else?”

Stevie thought about it. He didn’t love the idea, but it didn’t bother him like he thought it would. “I think so. If we were okay. Are we okay?”

Alex smiled. “Yeah, we’re okay. We’ve got stuff we need to work on, but we’re okay.”

A slow ache spread through Stevie’s back and shoulders as the tension of the last few weeks dissipated. He hadn’t realised just how much he had been carrying until Alex smiled at him and took it all away. “Good. I don’t want— whatever happens I need us to be, y’know. Us.”

“We will be. As long as you actually talk to me.” She smiled again and took his hand. “So, what happened with your fight? Was that about this?”

“Yeah,” Stevie said, feeling less nauseous than he usually did when he thought about it. It didn’t seem so overwhelming now.

“What did you do?”

“What makes you think I did something?” Stevie said, but his attempt at outrage was weak.

“Well, I’m married to you for a start.” She ran her thumb across his knuckles, her bitten nail catching against his skin. “Come on, it can’t be that bad. I’m sure it’s fixable.” 

He told her everything. About the fight and what led up to it, and all the other little things that he hadn’t told her yet; about Xabi’s invitation when he walked in on them, about what he’d done in the bathroom after, about the blinding anger and fear he had felt at the derisive words of a stranger, about his confusion and his fascination and his _want_. She listened, and didn’t speak until finally he ran out of words.

“Jesus Christ, Steven.”

“I know.”

“At least you walked away before any punches were thrown.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“I’m just trying to find the silver lining to the big black stormcloud you’ve brought into all our lives.” Stevie groaned and Alex squeezed his hand. “Sorry. That wasn’t fair.”

“No, it was.”

“You need to talk to them, love. You need to sit down with them and tell them everything you’ve just told me.”

“What if they still hate me?”

“I don’t think they hate you.”

Stevie thought back to the way they had both looked at him, and Carra’s comment about Xabi almost hitting him. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”

“You won’t be any worse off than you are now if they do. But I doubt it. They’ll forgive you, given that pedestal they’ve got you on.”

“Yeah, I really don’t think they do anymore.”

“You did fling yourself off there pretty vigorously,” Alex agreed. “But that’s probably for the best.” She stood up, leaned over the counter, and unplugged Stevie’s phone from its charger. “Call them.” She held out the phone, then pressed it into his hand when he didn’t take it. “Come on, Gerrard. Time to be brave.”

“Right. Yeah.” He looked at the phone, then back up at Alex. “Once I’ve told them, what happens then?”

“Fuck, Stevie, I don’t know. Do I have to tell you how to do everything?”

“I just mean, am I trying to fix what I broke, am I trying to— you said you didn’t think—”

“What do you want?”

“I already told you that.”

“Tell me again.”

“I want— I want to be with them. Both of them.” It tumbled out in a bit of a rush, but it was easier this time than the first time. Alex smiled.

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“If they still want to, I think you should go for it. Slowly. Really fucking slowly, Stevie. Like, glaciers should be overtaking you.”

“Really?”

“You need that, and I think I do too.”

“The taking it slowly part or the me going out with— with two other men part?” It might be getting easier to say, but it still sounded weird to his ears. 

“I was talking about going slowly, but if going out with two other men stops you being such a miserable bastard then, yeah, that too.”

“Xabi’s going to leave,” he blurted. “I don’t know when. This season, next season, five years from now. He won’t stay.”

“Everyone leaves, love. Xabi’ll leave, Fernando’ll leave. Even you, one day. You can’t let that stop you or you’ll never do anything.”

“Not you though, right? You’ll stay.”

“I’ll stay.” She bent down and kissed him on the forehead. “Call them,” she said, her lips brushing against his skin. He watched her walk out of the room, then turned his attention to his phone. He spent some time deliberating over which of them to call first before settling on Xabi. He and Fernando struggled with communication at the best of times. He pressed the call button and listened to it ring. And ring and ring. Eventually the voicemail picked up and Stevie ended the call. Bracing himself he tried Fernando, with the same result. He called Xabi again and this time left a message.

“Xabi, mate, it’s me. I get if you don’t want to talk to me, but I think we need to. The three of us, y’know. I don’t know if you’re ignoring me or just busy or what. You and Nando are both— or Nagore, I suppose. Didn’t think about that. I don’t know what routine you guys have. I don’t know who you’re with right now. I suppose that’s my fault. Or maybe you just don’t want to speak to me. That’s my fault too. I’m so sorry, Xabs, really. I’m sorry. Anyway. Call me, yeah?” He hung up, cursing himself, then called Fernando. Still no answer. He left him the same message, with slightly less rambling this time. 

He made himself another coffee — he probably wasn’t sleeping much tonight anyway, despite the brandy, so he may as well be caffeinated. He nibbled at another piece of the lemon thing Alex had made. He unloaded the dishwasher when it had finished. His phone, lying on the counter, stayed in his line of sight the whole time.

It didn’t ring.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My original plan when I started writing this fic (believe it or not, I do generally have a plan - of sorts - when I start writing) was for this chapter to be more like chapter one but with a not-in-denial!Stevie, basically bookending the fic with porn. The way things worked out, Stevie's not really ready for that. So no porn in this one, sorry to anyone who was anticipating that.

Something was buzzing, loud and persistent and right by his head. Stevie turned over with a groan and cracked open an eye in time to see his phone dance over the edge of the bedside table and tumble to the floor. It lay vibrating on the carpet, flashing a name at him. He stared for several seconds before diving for it in a tangle of duvet.

“Ow, fuck. Xabi?”

“Hi— um, are you okay?”

“Yeah. Banged my elbow.” He sat up and rubbed at it while simultaneously aiming a kick at the offending bedside table and succeeded only in toppling over backwards.

“What are you doing right now?”

“Honestly?”

“That would be nice.”

“Lying on my bedroom floor with my duvet over my head, probably with a bruised elbow. And my toe too. I fell out of bed.”

“Stevie,” Xabi sighed, then muttered something in Spanish. Or maybe Basque. Stevie needed to be considerably more awake before he could tell the difference.

“I know, I know, I’m a mess. That’s been made clear to me, thanks. What time is it?”

“About ten thirty I think.”

“In the morning?”

“Yes, in the morning. It is not that early.”

“I know, sorry, mate. Just woke up. Not quite with it.”

“I got your message. We got your messages.”

“Oh.”

“You do remember leaving the messages don’t you? Because if it was just drunk rambling then—”

“No! I remember. I wasn’t drunk. I mean, I’d been drinking but I wasn’t— wasn’t drunk.” There was silence from Xabi, but Stevie heard a voice in the background that sounded like Fernando’s. “Please, Xabi. Nando. He’s there, right? I meant it. I really am sorry.”

There was a pause. “Okay.”

“Okay? What does that— I don’t know what that means.” There was a brief, muffled conversation.

“It means we can talk.”

Stevie let out a heavy breath. “Right. Good. Now?”

“No, Nando has to go. He just came round this morning to— we needed to talk, too. Olalla’s parents are visiting and they’re taking them to do, you know, tourist stuff. He— hold on.”

“Stevie?” 

“Nando, hi. Look, I’m sorry. I’m really so, so sorry.”

“I know. You say already. Xabi did not say, but we are sorry too.” There was a sound of protest in the background. “Fine. I am sorry. Xabi is, um, working on it? Xabi is working on it.”

“There’s no need, mate. I was out of line.”

“I don’t think— we cannot do this now. I have to go. I am free tonight.”

“Alright, yeah. I think I can work tonight. I’ll text you both and we can sort out when. You can come to mine, I think Alex will be out.”

“Okay. Stevie, I— nevermind. I have to go. We will see you tonight.” And the line went dead.

Stevie extricated himself from the duvet, tripped over, scrambled back up and went to take a shower. Maybe after that he’d feel more like an adult capable of getting out of bed without injuring themselves, or at least like a functional human being.

No amount of showering would remove the fuzzy-headed heaviness that came from not getting to sleep until dawn, but he did feel a little better as he made his way downstairs. Xabi and Fernando were at least speaking to him; perhaps he hadn’t fucked up past the point of no return. Perhaps Carra was right — he’d apologise, they’d apologise, and they’d all move on. Fernando seemed open to forgiving and forgetting, or at least forgiving. Xabi he was less sure about. 

The kitchen smelled of coffee. Stevie had never been so grateful that Alex had insisted on getting a proper posh coffee maker, or so grateful that she knew how to use it because he could never get the hang of it. He poured himself a cup and wondered what would happen if Fernando wanted to move things on and Xabi didn’t. _We needed to talk too_ , Xabi had said. It hadn’t occurred to him that he might cause problems between them, that they wouldn’t always be on the same page. There was a lot that hadn’t occurred to him. Alex had left a note on the kitchen table saying she had gone to the gym and then she would pick the girls up from her mum’s. Why she went out to the gym when they had a perfectly good gym of their own in the basement was beyond Stevie, but she preferred it. 

He made himself some breakfast — unsweetened muesli with raisin and banana in an attempt to make up for how very badly he had once again strayed from his diet sheet — and sipped his coffee, and thought about how close he had come to screwing up not only every aspect of his own life, but some very important parts of other people’s lives too.

~~

Lilly-Ella was brushing her teeth and Stevie was trying to wrangle a still-damp Lexie into her pyjamas when the buzzer for the front gate went. Stevie bit back the swear words that sprang to his tongue. When he’d told Xabi and Fernando to come over around seven he had somehow managed to forget that seven was bathtime. “Finish your teeth, Lil. I’m just going to let Xabi and Fernando in. Come on, you,” he added to Lexie, picking her up. They went downstairs and he let her press the button for the intercom, even though she she wasn’t really strong enough to hold it and kept cutting Fernando off.

By the time the doorbell rang, Lexie was fully pyjamaed and Lilly-Ella was heading downstairs. Stevie took a deep breath and opened the door to find Fernando fiddling with his hair. He was alone.

“Where’s Xabi?” Lilly-Ella wailed before Stevie had chance to even open his mouth. 

“Is nice to see you too,” Fernando said to her with a smile. “Xabi is not here yet? I thought he would be here before me. He is on his way.” Lilly-Ella’s pout turned into a smile. Stevie let go of a breath. Fernando gave him a knowing look. “He will be here, do not worry.”

“Right, yeah.”

“Yellow,” Lexie said, and grabbed Fernando’s hair. Fernando grinned, then winced as she gripped too tight.

“Lex, no,” Stevie said, prying her fingers away. “Sorry, mate.”

“Is okay, it happens all the time,” Fernando said with a shrug. “Children like my hair.”

“Yellow,” Lexie agreed, reaching for it again.

“My hair is not— okay, yes. Yellow.” Lexie beamed at him.

“Come through,” Stevie said, motioning towards the living room with his head. “I’ve got to put this one to bed. Are you okay…”

“Yes, yes. We will find something to do, won’t we?” Fernando said to Lilly-Ella. She looked at him dubiously but didn’t object. She hugged her sister and said goodnight, then ran off to the living room. Fernando followed.

“No TV,” Stevie called after them.

Lexie was worn out from an afternoon of football in the garden, tea parties and swimming. She was asleep before Stevie had even finished reading The Naughty Little Rabbit. He kissed her goodnight and sat stroking her hair for a minute before venturing back downstairs.

Fernando was lying on the living room floor with Lilly-Ella, helping her colour in a unicorn and apparently forgiven for the heinous crime of not being Xabi. “Daddy, Nando’s very good at colouring,” Lilly-Ella said. “But he’s never seen a unicorn.”

Stevie fought the smile he could feel pulling at his lips. “Never seen a unicorn? That can’t be right.”

“No, it’s true, he said. I told him about the unicorn in our garden, but he doesn’t have one.”

“There’s no unicorn at the bottom of your garden, mate?”

Fernando looked up from where he was colouring the unicorn’s tale with purple crayon and shook his head solemnly. “No, no unicorn.” 

“That’s not fair, is it Daddy? Why doesn’t he have one?”

“Perhaps when I have children of my own, a unicorn will come,” Fernando suggested.

“That must be it, Lil. Unicorns like to be where children are.” Lilly-Ella thought about it then nodded, happy with this explanation. She yawned widely then clamped her mouth shut when she realised what she was doing. “I’m not tired.”

“Well, tired or not, it’s bedtime.”

“Aww, Daddy.”

“Come on. Colouring book away, crayons away. Say goodnight to Nando.”

“But what about Xabi? I want to see Xabi.”

“Sorry, love, Xabi’s late. Bed.” Lilly-Ella stomped around the room putting away her book and her crayons, then marched over to Fernando and threw her arms around him.

“’Night, Nando.”

“Goodnight, Lilly-Ella.” He returned her hug and smiled at Stevie over her shoulder. Something tugged at Stevie’s chest. 

“Daddy,” Lilly-Ella said later when she was tucked up in bed and Stevie had read The Gruffalo. “Can Nando come over one day and we can show him the unicorn in the garden? And Xabi too?” Despite her protestations, she was as tired as her sister and her words came out in between yawns. 

“I’m sure we can arrange that.”

She nodded, then frowned. “Doesn’t Xabi have his own unicorn? He has a baby, he should have a unicorn of his own.”

“I— I don’t know, love. I’ve never asked him.”

“Will you ask him?”

“Course I will.”

“Tonight?”

“I will ask him as soon as he gets here.”

“Okay.” She snuggled further down under her duvet and closed her eyes. “I’m not tired,” was the last thing she said before she fell fast asleep. Stevie kissed her forehead and went downstairs. He found Fernando in the kitchen drinking a glass of water.

“Thanks for that, mate,” Stevie said. 

“No problem. I enjoyed it. And I learn a new English word.”

“You saying you didn’t know the word unicorn? I don’t know what they’ve been teaching you.”

“Strangely, it has not come up before today.”

“So, is that something you want, then?”

Fernando frowned. “A unicorn?”

“Kids, you numpty.”

“Oh. Of course I do. You are surprised?”

“Not really. Just— aren’t you a bit young?”

Fernando smiled. “How old were you when Lilly-Ella was born?”

“Um, well. About your age, actually.”

“And were you too young?”

“Probably. No. Maybe. I wouldn’t change anything though. Stop laughing at me.”

“Sorry.” Fernando stopped but the laughter lingered around his eyes and Stevie realised how close they were standing. He reached out and took hold of Fernando’s wrist, his fingers brushing the back of his hand. The laughter faded away. “Stevie,” Fernando said softly, and it might have been a warning but Stevie wasn’t sure. He didn’t let go and Fernando didn’t pull away. “We should wait for Xabi to get here.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I know. Just— have I ruined this? Have I blown it?”

Fernando shook his head. “I do not think so.”

“Does Xabi?”

Fernando hesitated and Stevie’s heart sank. “Xabi doesn’t think you have ruined it.” It may have just been Fernando’s accent doing weird things to the sentence, but it sounded a lot like Xabi thought it was ruined, even if he didn’t blame Stevie for it.

“Nando,” Stevie began, but he didn’t know how to finish. Fernando twisted his hand in Stevie’s grip so that their fingers interlocked.

“It will be okay, Stevie. We will, um, work it out. Yes?” Stevie had no choice but to nod in agreement. The buzzer made them both jump, Fernando’s fingers tightening around Stevie’s. He didn’t let go of Stevie’s hand as they went to let Xabi in. The voice over the intercom sounded strained.

They watched from the doorway as a figure hurried through the gates on foot. Behind him, an RAC van with what appeared to be Xabi’s car attached to the tow-bar was pulling away from the kerb. 

“Sorry, sorry,” Xabi said as soon as he was within earshot. “Car broke down, phone battery died.” He looked stressed and his hair had the rumpled look of having had hands run through it many times. Fernando reached out to smooth down a tuft sticking up at the back. Xabi smiled and some of the tension eased out of him.

“You are here now. Come.” Fernando gestured inside, then looked at Stevie and ducked his head. “Sorry, is your house.” Stevie laughed. It was quiet and caught in his throat, but he managed it.

“It’s fine, mate. I wasn’t planning on having this conversation on the doorstep. Come on.” He stepped back to let them inside, and Fernando finally let go of him. The chilly November air was cold against his empty hand in a way it hadn’t been a moment before. He followed them inside and shut the door.

Xabi and Fernando sat on one of the sofas in the living room, a careful distance between them. After a moment’s hesitation, Stevie sat on the other sofa, at right-angles to them. There was a long silence. There had been so much Stevie wanted to say, needed to say, but it all seemed inadequate now that the moment was actually here. Then Fernando nudged Xabi’s foot with his own. Xabi took a deep breath.

“Okay. Stevie. I have to be honest — we all have to be honest — I am still angry about what you said. But, you were right. Some of it was right. We have not behaved as we should. We tried to… I do not want to use the word manipulate. But that may be the only word, I don’t know. We had good intentions, or we thought we did. But we were thinking more about what we wanted than what you wanted. When I took your keys to get you alone, when we tried to get you to ask questions, we were trying to help you work things out but we did it all wrong. We definitely shouldn’t have told you about why we got together in the first place. That was— I don’t really know what I thought I was doing, how I thought that would help. It just confused you further and I knew that when I did it. I’m sorry. We tried to push you more quickly than you were ready for and we should have let you work things out for yourself, at your speed. We didn’t, and we both apologise for that.” Beside him, Fernando nodded. Listening to Xabi rattling it all off, Stevie realised he wasn’t the only one who had spent time rehearsing what he wanted to say, or the only one fucking it up now that it came to saying it.

“It’s alright, Xabi.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“No, I mean— apology accepted. Okay?” Xabi nodded. “You said you were still angry.” Xabi nodded again, then shook his head, and Fernando gave him a look that Stevie didn’t understand but made him think this was something they had discussed at length.

“You said this was a joke. A farce. I know you said that because you were lashing out and you wanted to, um, to make us angry too. At least, I hope that’s why you—”

“It is. I know you two are serious. I’ve seen it.”

“Okay. You need to understand. Neither of us have been in a relationship like this before. We have both had, ah, what is the word?” He glanced from Fernando to Stevie. Fernando pulled a face and shrugged.

“One night stands?” Stevie suggested. “Flings?”

“Flings? Yes, I think. And one night stands too. Always with our girlfriends’ permission. And they have them too. But they were always for fun, never serious. This is serious. We didn’t expect it to be, we didn’t expect to fall in love, but that’s what happened and here we are. And it’s complicated. Working out what we want from each other, how that fits with our relationships with Nagore, with Olalla. Now, in the future. It has not been easy. It will only get harder. I have Jon and one day Fernando will have children too. That changes things. Making it work will be hard. Maybe impossible. But we want to try. For you to call us a joke, to dismiss what we— I don’t ever want to hear you say anything like that again. Not even suggest it. I don’t care what the reason is. That will be the end, for us. We will not be friends, we will not be— we will be teammates. Colleagues. That is all.” Fernando nodded beside him. Stevie felt sick.

“Yeah, I get that. I understand. And I don’t think it’s a joke, I really don’t. I should never have said that. I’m so sorry.”

“Okay. Apology accepted,” Xabi said. He smiled and Stevie’s nausea receded just a little. Fernando smiled too and Stevie knew he had already been forgiven.

“Are you leaving?” he asked Xabi. The smiles fell from both their faces.

“I don’t know,” Xabi said.

“And you’re okay with that?” Stevie said, turning to Fernando.

“No,” Fernando said with a frown. “That is, I do not want him to leave. But if he does, we will deal with it. If he doesn’t we will deal with that also. We are important to each other, very important. But we agreed always that we cannot make those decisions based on, on how we feel. Olalla and Nagore and our families come first. Then our careers. That is always true, if Xabi is in Liverpool or Spain or somewhere else. If Xabi stays, it cannot be for me. That is how it is. We must make choices. We must, ah, we must sacrifice. We cannot have everything.” He gave Stevie a thoughtful look. “He cannot stay for you, either.”

“I didn’t—”

“You have thought about it. That is okay. But whatever happens here, Xabi’s choice cannot be about us.” 

“What if— where do I fit in? If Xabi leaves, where does that leave you and me?”

“We don’t know where we stand now and you’re worrying about where you might fit in a hypothetical future?” Xabi said.

“Well, it sounds stupid when you put it like that.”

“It leaves you and me working out what we want from each other. Just as we are now and just as Xabi and I were before,” Fernando said. “But that is in the future. It may not happen at all.”

“You know, I still don’t know exactly what it is you want from me. I don’t understand how I— You two have this serious, established relationship. We’re not exactly on an equal footing. There’s you two, and then there’s me.”

Xabi nodded. “That’s true, and it’s something I’ve been thinking about recently. It makes it even worse that we tried to persuade you when we hadn’t thought this through properly.” Fernando shook his head slightly and Xabi frowned at him. “This is where we start to disagree.”

“You think it’s okay that you tried to persuade me without thinking it through properly?”

“No, of course not.” Fernando said. “We just have a different idea of how the situation is— I do not know how—” He turned to Xabi. “Help.”

Xabi laughed and patted Fernando’s knee, then turned back to Stevie. “You are right about us not being equal. We are not in the same place. We have been in a relationship for a year. We have loved you for even longer. But you do not feel that way about us. Perhaps you never will.” Xabi looked down and covered his face with his hands. Fernando rested a hand on his shoulder. After a few moments, Xabi looked up. “The more I think about it, the more I doubt whether a relationship between the three of us is even possible. I want it to be, you don’t know how much I want it to be. But we are not all starting from the same place and I’m worried about what happens if you don’t catch up, if you never feel about us the way we feel about you. You would be coming into this knowing that we feel more for you than you for us. It is a lot of pressure to put on you. Maybe more than our relationship or our friendship can sustain.”

Stevie swallowed. It wasn’t easy with the way his breath was clogging up his throat. He didn’t know what to say to any of that so he turned to Fernando. “You disagree?”

“I disagree with, with Xabi’s view of your feelings. I think you do not have as much, ah, as much catching up to do as he thinks.”

“Really.”

“I watched the two of you, when I first came here. I watched you when I could barely speak to you and Xabi had to translate, and I watched you later, when Xabi and I were already together and it was not serious yet. I was jealous. Of you two. Of him. It was obvious, to me, how you felt about him. It is still obvious to me.” Fernando smiled. “You may not have realised it or may not have told it to yourself in the same words, but you love Xabi already. You have done for a long time.” Stevie couldn’t speak. “You do not love me the same yet. But that is okay. I think you will. Perhaps that is just because I wish it. But it is what I think.”

The room was silent but for Stevie’s pounding heart, which he was sure the other two could hear, could see. 

“Is he right?” Xabi asked, his voice taut. Stevie looked at him and looked away again. He couldn’t handle the hope in Xabi’s face.

“Yes,” he said at last. It was a strangled whisper, barely audible. “Yes.” Louder this time. “Yeah, I think so.”

“Which part?”

“All of it. I think all of it.” Xabi’s face flooded with relief. Fernando smiled and squeezed his shoulder. 

“So, what you think?” Fernando asked Stevie. “Can we try this?”

Stevie took a deep breath. “Yeah, we can. I want to.” 

He felt like he should do something; get off the sofa and hug them, kiss them, something. He could reach out and touch Xabi if he leaned forward a little. But he couldn’t move. He didn’t know what to do next so he took a leaf out of Xabi’s book and hid his face in his hands.

“ _Dios_ ”, Fernando muttered. “Both hopeless.” There was a shuffling, rustling sound, and then Stevie felt the sofa dip under somebody’s weight. He opened his eyes to find Fernando sitting beside him. He looked nervous but determined, an expression Stevie was very familiar with, though it was usually directed at the pitch they were all about to step onto rather than at Stevie himself.

“Hi,” Stevie said.

“Hi.” Fernando’s eyes were fixed on his face. He cupped Stevie’s cheek. “This is okay?” Stevie nodded.

“Fer,” Xabi complained. “This is not helpful. We are supposed to be talking.”

“There is nothing to talk about. Not that needs to be told right now.” Stevie’s heart was racing. For a second he was thirteen again, about to kiss Lizzie Wilson and hoping he didn’t get slapped. She’d been blonde too. Then Fernando gently pressed his lips to Stevie’s.

It was strange. It had been years since he kissed anyone but Alex and the part of him that had believed it would always be that way, that it should always be that way, was screaming ‘wrong, wrong, this is wrong’ at him. But that part of him didn’t know what it was talking about and he had been listening to it for far too long. He realised he was holding his breath and let it go, parting his lips against Fernando’s. Fernando slid his hand around to the back of Stevie’s head and deepened the kiss.

“Fuck,” Xabi breathed from behind him, and a second later there was a pair of hands on his shoulders. Stevie thought he felt lips brush the back of his neck. Then Xabi was easing him backwards, away from Fernando. They parted with a sigh from Stevie and a grumble from Fernando, whose eyes fluttered open with a smile. Then he closed them again and rested his forehead against Stevie’s chest. Xabi laughed and rested a hand on the side of Fernando’s neck, and Fernando fumbled for it then entwined their fingers together. Then Xabi wedged himself between Stevie and the arm of the sofa, pulling Stevie back against his chest. “You spoke to Alex about this, yes?”

Stevie nodded. “She’s okay with it but she says I need to take it slowly.”

“She is right,” Xabi said. Fernando mumbled something in Spanish into Stevie’s shirt.

“Right, we’re going to need some ground rules and I think the first one should be ‘no saying things that I don’t understand.’”

“I tell you to learn Spanish,” Fernando said.

“He was disapproving of the general concept of taking things slowly,” Xabi said.

“I don’t love the idea myself, mate. But she’s right. I’m not ready.”

“I know. I was teasing,” Fernando said, lifting his head to look at Stevie. “Mostly.”

Stevie looked down at him and frowned. “You comfy there like that?” It didn’t look like it to Stevie.

“Comfy? Oh, I see. Not really. But, is nice.”

“Come here, you idiot.” He hooked his hands under Fernando’s arms and pulled him up. Fernando protested at being manhandled but seemed happy enough once he was settled so he was lying sideways with his head and shoulder against Stevie’s chest rather than leaning forwards.

“If you tickle him under his chin, he will purr,” Xabi said. Fernando swatted at him half-heartedly.

They stayed like that for a while, Fernando’s fingers absently tapping out the rhythm of Stevie’s too-fast heartbeat, while Xabi’s heartbeat thudded against Stevie’s back. “Stevie?” Xabi said after a few minutes.

“Hmm?”

Fingers pressed gently against his jaw, turning his head until his lips were in reach of Xabi’s. “I didn’t get my turn,” Xabi whispered, and kissed him.

The angle was awful and his neck started to ache immediately, but Stevie didn’t care. He was kissing Xabi and Fernando was right: he’d wanted this for a long, long time. He heard a quiet ‘oh’ from Fernando, then Fernando’s weight shifted against him and he was being kissed softly just under his jaw, Fernando’s tongue flickering against his pulse. Far too soon, Xabi let go of Stevie and, with Stevie unable to keep his head in that position without assistance, broke the kiss. Fernando stopped what he had been doing to Stevie’s neck. 

“What—” Xabi began, cut off by Fernando leaning over Stevie’s shoulder and stealing a kiss before returning to his spot against Stevie’s chest. “What counts as taking it slowly?”

“Um, that, I think. That’s as far as I can go right now.” Xabi sighed, but he was smiling.

“Fair enough.”

“But, there is no time limit, yes?” Fernando said. “I mean, we can do that as much as we want?”

“Fuck, yes,” Stevie said, causing Fernando to lift his head again to grin at him. “But, um, there’s some stuff I need to tell you first. Not bad stuff,” he added hurriedly as Fernando’s face turned wary and Xabi tensed behind him. “Just, y’know. What’s been happening with me the last few months. I think you should know.”

“Oh. Yes, we should know that,” Fernando said, letting his head drop back down. Xabi relaxed and slipped his arms around Stevie’s waist. There was a long silence while Stevie worked out how to begin, but there was no tension in it now. Xabi and Fernando just quietly waited for Stevie to gather his thoughts. Fernando’s fingers resumed their drumming against Stevie’s chest, at least until Xabi moved his hand up to stop him by curling his fingers around Fernando’s.

It was easier telling them everything than it had been telling Alex. Perhaps because he had been admitting some things to himself for the first time as much as to her, or perhaps he was less afraid of their reactions. Even so, it all came out tangled and in the wrong order. When he got to the real reason for starting the fight that led to his arrest, Fernando sat upright and glared at him. Then he leaned forward and kissed him, hard. So hard Stevie was dizzy with it, could hardly breathe. Xabi groaned as Stevie was pushed back against him and his arms tightened around Stevie’s waist. “ _Idiota_ ”, Fernando said, followed by a few more things Stevie couldn’t catch, none of them complimentary he was sure. “Do not ever do that again.”

“Um, okay. But, y’know, I’m probably going to do it every week if it makes you kiss me like that.” 

“I was going to say,” Xabi said. “If you’re going to reward him for being an idiot, then he’s going to keep being an idiot.”

“Hey.”

“Was not a reward. I didn’t think it was a good idea to hit him. Had to do something.” Fernando sat back against the sofa with his arms folded. 

“Nando, don’t be daft. Get back here.” Stevie held out his arms to him and Fernando grudgingly resumed his position against his chest.

“Thank you,” he said into Stevie’s shirt. “But really, do not do it again.”

“You know, it wasn’t entirely because of you.”

“I know. Thank you anyway.”

“Any more confessions of stupidity you want to share?” Xabi said.

“No, I think that’s it. Other than, y’know, my general behaviour.”

“Really? Nothing you did at the party? Perhaps after you left the bedroom where you walked in on us?”

Stevie’s cheeks burned and he turned his face away in the probably futile hope that it would keep Xabi from noticing. He debated whether or not to deny it, but what was the point? Besides, part of him wanted them to know. “That wasn’t stupidity, that was necessity.”

“Ha! I knew it,” Xabi said, while Fernando groaned.

“What?”

“I knew you’d run away to wank over us,” Xabi said. “He thought you were too in denial.”

“If I’d had less to drink, he’d probably be right,” Stevie admitted.

“That is good to know,” Fernando said. “How much would you have needed to drink to stay?”

“No getting me drunk and taking advantage of me, Torres.”

“Of course not.”

“Is that everything?” Xabi said. “You have no more surprises for us?”

Stevie prodded at his feelings, checking for the sick sense of guilt that said he was lying about something. He found nothing, just a lightness and contentment and, most of all, relief. “No. I think you know everything now.” He leaned his head against Xabi’s shoulder and closed his eyes. “So, you think we can do this, then? Us three?”

Xabi’s chest rose and fell against his back as he took a deep breath. “I think so. It will be hard, but I think so. Fernando?”

“You already know I do.” Fernando’s head shifted against Stevie’s chest; it felt as though he was resting his chin against it. Stevie opened his eyes and found Fernando looking up at him. “What about you, Stevie? Do you think we can?” 

Stevie took hold of Fernando’s hand which was again resting on his chest, then felt around for Xabi’s, which was caught underneath Fernando. Xabi’s fingers squeezed his in response. “Yeah,” he said. “I think we can.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's that. (For now.) I hope you enjoyed it. Writing this was a bit of an experiment for me in terms of how I wrote and posted it, at least in the early chapters, and though I'm happy with the overall content it really needs completely restructuring and rewriting. Which isn't going to happen. 
> 
> As mentioned in the previous chapter, my second child is due any day now so there'll be no writing at all for a while. However, I'd be curious to hear people's thoughts about what they would want from future sequels. I originally conceived this as a series as in my head this relationship spans decades and continents. I have planned(ish): a 'how Xabi and Nando got together' prequel; the porn I couldn't work into this chapter; the inevitable Xabi Leaves fic; a completely gratuitous PWP of unspecified time and place; something about Stevie's charity match idk; post-retirement fic maybe??? So if there's anything else you'd like to see, or anything missing from this fic that you feel really ought to be there, let me know and I'll see what I can do. Eventually.


End file.
